By KYIV. May 5 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The national police and the prosecutor’s office intervened in a corporate dispute between Sela Energy LLC and Navigator Komplekt LLC over the Mainytske gas field siding Navigator Komplekt and using inadequate forceful measures, the co-owner of Sela Energy, the founder and head of Concorde Capital investment company Ihor Mazepa has said.
“This is how cop lawlessness in action looks like. It seems that these “law enforcement officers” or their bosses were bought. Otherwise, I cannot explain the intervention of the police and the prosecutor’s office in a dispute between two private companies. The price tag for such a story is from $150,000. Consider this a statement about a crime,” he wrote on Facebook.
Mazepa said that Navigator Komplekt accuses him and his partners in Sela Energy, Dmytro Oliynyk and Ivan Oliynyk, head of the Council of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine, of paying too little for the acquisition of Navigator Mainytske LLC. This company has a geological exploration license until 2036, including the pilot development of the Mainytske gas field (16 km east of Sambir) with an area of 79 square kilometers with subsequent oil and gas production.
Both parties filed lawsuits with the Economic Court of Kyiv, which has not yet ruled on the dispute. According to the case file, Sela Energy, under an agreement signed in January 2021, paid Navigator Komplekt the equivalent of $1.8 million for a 100% stake in Navigator Mainytske. The agreement also provided for the possibility of a bonus payment of $3 million, depending on the drilling of a well in the field. The well was not drilled, after which the seller demanded to return 62.5% in Navigator Mainytske, while Sela Energy demands to review the terms of the sale contract in part of the bonus payment, since drilling of the well depends on the action of Navigator Mainytske and the State Service of Geology and Subsoil of Ukraine, which were not parties to the agreement.
According to Mazepa, Navigator Komplekt applied to the National Police at the beginning of April of this year “on the alleged fact of incomplete payment for the acquired property,” after which on April 12, by order of the National Police Department, a group of investigators consisting of 23 people was created.
The head of Concorde Capital claims that eight employees of the prosecutor’s office were also involved in the case, and on April 25, “mask shows” were held with the participation of about 50 police officers – searches at once at several facilities associated with the owners of the Sela Energy, including 76-year-old mother of Mazepa, were conducted.
The Federation of Employers of Ukraine in its statement also indicated that law enforcement officers seized equipment, documents and, contrary to the court ruling, personal funds of Dmytro Oliynyk legally obtained and confirmed by a declaration. The funds should have been soon invested in the restoration of the Oak Grove LLC, a livestock breeding company, which suffered from air strikes at the beginning Russian invasion.
Mazepa added that the companies’ accounts were also frozen, as a result of which it is impossible to pay salaries and taxes to the state budget.
“We will do everything possible to ensure that all dishonest nannies in uniform suffer the deserved punishment for the return of shameful practices of pressure on business that undermine an already not the best investment climate,” the head of Concorde Capital said.
According to him, the business community is also developing a bill according to which the state will compensate businesses for the costs associated with protecting their rights in criminal cases, that is, legal expenses and operating losses, if the actions of law enforcement agencies against legal entities are declared illegal by court.
The Federation of Employers, in turn, announced that an appeal was sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, the Interim Ad Hoc Commission for the Protection of Investors’ Rights and the Business Ombudsman Council.
The head of the parliamentary committee on finance, tax and customs policy, Danylo Hetmantsev, on his Telegram channel criticized the seizure of cash by law enforcement officers, the legality of which is confirmed by agreements and a tax declaration,.
