By KYIV. Dec 1 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The High Anti-Corruption Court of Appeal upheld the appeal of a prosecutor of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) to cancel a decision of the court of first instance dated August 23, 2022, which closed the case on the theft of natural gas in the amount of over UAH 1.4 billion.
"The court agreed with the arguments of the prosecutor, canceled the said ruling and sent the case back for a new trial. The full text of the court decision will be announced on December 2, 2022," the SAPO press service said.
As reported, in January 2018, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine announced the detention in Lviv of four officials of three companies: Energia-Novy Rozdil, Energia-Novoyavorivsk and Energia on suspicion of seizing more than 300 million cubic meters of gas from Naftogaz Ukrainy worth over UAH 1.4 billion. These persons were informed about the suspicion of misappropriation of state property on an especially large scale and other crimes.
The investigation established that the enterprises – owners of Novoyavorivsk and Novy Rozdil CHPPs during 2013-2015 concluded a number of agreements on the purchase of natural gas from NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy for generation of thermal energy for the population. In order to reduce the cost of heat for this category of consumers, Naftogaz supplied gas to CHPPs at prices significantly lower than market ones. This corruption scheme led to the fact that the profitability of electricity generation by these CHPPs exceeded 60% (versus 3-5% included in the tariff by the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission of Ukraine (NEURC), and NJSC Naftogaz Ukrainy incurred losses on a total amount of over UAH 1.4 billion.
The ultimate beneficiaries of the companies involved in the criminal proceedings, until December 2019, were former MPs Yaroslav and Bohdan Dubnevych, and later their sons Yuriy and Pavlo Dubnevych.
