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reaching the amount in October. It is also noted that last year, management decided to increase the bank's capital by €4B, resulting in its capital base increasing to €34B and allowing it to continue supporting Ukraine. Wartime investment in Ukraine is expected to continue at around €1.5B per year, and the capital increase will allow investment to double as the country begins to rebuild. During 2022-2023, the EBRD mobilised almost €1.6B in donor funds for Ukraine, including unfunded guarantees. In addition to significant contributions from individual donors, the EU provided nearly half of the resources.
Foreign investors want to buy two Ukrainian state-owned banks. Foreign investors expressed interest in purchasing two Ukrainian state-owned banks, Ukrgasbank and Sense Bank, Deputy Finance Minister Yurii Drahanchuk told Ukrainska Pravda.
The Kyiv Pechersk District court ordered the arrest of the detained Ukrainian businessman and the founder of the Concorde Capital investment company, Igor Mazepa, Suspilne reported on January 19.
He was taken into custody until February 27 with an alternative of almost Hr 350mn ($9.1mn) bail, even though the prosecution insisted on bail in the amount of Hr 700mn ($18.2mn). Mazepa was detained a day earlier as he tried to cross the border into Poland. According to Concorde Capital, he was on his way to the Davos forum in Switzerland while law enforcement officers raided the company’s office. On January 19, the State Investigation Bureau said that the businessman is suspected of illegally seizing land near Kyiv, calling him "the organizer of a criminal scheme."
The matter concerns seven hectares of land on which the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant facilities are located. Tetiana Sapian, a communications advisor of the State Bureau of Investigation, said the construction could put the capital’s infrastructure at risk.
Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman is suing the Ukrainian government and claiming $1bn after it nationalised his Ukraine-based Sense bank, Meduza reported on January 8.
Fridman’s ABH Holdings, which includes his partner Petr Aven as a minority shareholder, initiated the lawsuit against Ukraine through the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
The government nationalised Sense Bank, formerly known as Alfa-Bank Ukraine, last year.
The legal foundation for the claim rests on an investment agreement between the Belgium-Luxembourg Economic Union and the Ukrainian government that is supposed to guarantee the mutual promotion and protection of investments.
According to the company's press release, the lawsuit highlights "Ukraine’s escalating series of arbitrary, disproportionate, unreasonable, and discriminatory steps that led to the expropriation of the Bank by forced nationalisation." In the summer of 2023, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) board decided to remove Sense Bank from the market and requested the government to nationalise the bank, a move later executed by Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers.
78 UKRAINE Country Report February 2024 www.intellinews.com