Over fifty Ukrainian companies that belonged to collaborators, Russians, or persons associated with them and who supported the war, became the property of Ukraine during two years of full-scale war.
Points of attention
- The mechanism for recovering assets from sanctioned companies in Ukraine is unique in world practice and ensures compliance with international norms and national legislation.
- Proving the connections of sanctioned persons with company assets is difficult, as they try to "disguise" them.
- The court usually satisfied most of the claims for recovery of assets submitted by the Ministry of Justice, which indicates the success of this process.
- Ukraine continues to work on seizing assets from pro-Russian companies and takes effective measures to combat aggression from the Russian Federation.
Subsanctioned companies were seized in Ukraine by internal sanctions
Out of 58 companies, only 13 businesses belonged to Russians. In the remaining 45 companies, the founders had close ties with the aggressor or supported the war in Ukraine. All these companies were taken into the ownership of Ukraine with the help of internal sanctions.
The process of seizing the property of sanctioned persons is quite complicated.
First, the NSDC must decide whether to apply sanctions to a specific person, which is put into effect by a decree of the Ukrainian president.
If the sanction includes blocking assets, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine applies to the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) with a statement to collect the sanctioned person's assets into state revenue.
In this case, the state can seize not only the assets that directly belong to this person but also those that he can dispose of through other persons.
The mechanism of recovery of assets from sanctioned companies in Ukraine is unique in world practice
At Opendatabot's request, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Justice, Inna Bohatykh, noted that Ukraine's enforcement mechanism is unique in world practice.
In such cases, it is important to comply with international norms and national legal requirements, so that decisions are not challenged in international courts.
Proving the connections of a sanctioned person with specific assets is also complicated. After all, usually, in such cases, they do everything possible to "disguise" the assets as much as possible and use more and more creative methods every time.
The process of gathering evidence and filing lawsuits is not easy. Consideration of claims in practice is also a lengthy process. For example, we are currently working on a case for which 38 court hearings have occurred. Only the statement of claim of the Ministry of Justice with annexes consists of 45 volumes. Instead, the total number of volumes currently under consideration in court is already more than 150, considering the evidence submitted by all participants in the process.
Inna Bohatykh
Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine
According to her, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine has filed 48 lawsuits. Of them, 40 have already been satisfied in favour of the state, and the decision on one case has not yet entered into force.
Seven more similar cases are currently under trial. The HACC and the HACC Appeals Chamber are considering the other seven cases based on lawsuits filed by the Ministry of Justice.
Inna Bohatyh adds that, in general, the court satisfied 98% of lawsuits filed to recover assets.
By the way, as of the day of the full-scale invasion, Opendatabot found 18,940 companies with owners from the Russian Federation in Ukrainian registers.
