Pechersk District Court removes attachment from 92.79% of Ukrtelecom’s shares on the claim of the State Property Fund, according to the court ruling, Liga.net reports.

In addition, the court canceled the ban of alienation of shares. The ruling is not subject to appeal and comes into force since its approval.

Reportedly, on October 19, 2017, against the claim of the State Property Fund, Kyiv Economic Court terminated Ukrtelecom’s share sale and purchase agreement, concluded in March 2011 as per the results of privatization tender by ESU company, which belongs to the businessperson Rinat Akhmetov, thus returning Ukrtelecom’s share package to state ownership.

The State Property Fund reports that ESU company did not fulfill obligations on investing 450 million dollars during 5 years into company’s development, due to which the fund filed the claim on termination of Ukrtelecom’s share sale and purchase agreement.

According to the court ruling, the penalty, amounting to UAH 2.171 bln, which was accrued for improper fulfilment of Ukrtelecom’s share sale and purchase agreement should be collected from ESU’s accounts.  

On December 12, the Appellate Court denied satisfying the claim of the private company ESU against the ruling of previous court instance, according to which Ukrtelecom was returned to state ownership.

It should be reminded that in May 2011, the State Property Fund sold 92.79% of Ukrtelecom’s shares to Ukrainian subsidiary of Austrian company EPIC – ESU firm – for UAH 10.5 bln.

Then ESU resold this asset to Akhmetov’s SKM Group. The businessperson became the indirect owner of the company.

He purchased from Epic 100% shares of UA Telecominvest Limited, which owns the corporate rights of Ukrainian ESU LLC.

The latter is the direct owner of Ukrtelecom, which controls almost 93% of the company’s shares.