Swiss investors have been practically forced to defend their investment projects in Ukraine through the courts, representatives of the Allseeds Black Sea company have said at a news conference, according to a report by Espreso TV.
In 2013, Swiss investor Allseeds Black Sea commissioned a vegetable oil
terminal with a 45,000 cubic meter capacity at Yuzhny port, and in 2015 – a
multifunctional oil-extracting plant with a capacity of 2,400 tons per day.
Mikheil Saakashvili, the head of Odesa Regional State Administration attended
the opening ceremony of the enterprise and spoke against there being a monopoly
of stevedoring in the Adzhalytsky Firth.
He demanded that the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority allow the Allseeds
Black Sea company to construct berths at Yuzhny port, saying: “Please give this
plant a permit for (the construction of) a berth, we will find the land. But
please stop protecting the petty mafia that have always operated here all the
time.”
Back then, in July 2015, the company approached Odesa Governor Saakashvili,
asking that he authorize the drafting of a land management project for the
construction of the aforementioned port infrastructure facilities. This was
needed in order to advance the implementation of the company’s investment
project, which is worth up to $400 million and which would quadruple the scale
of oil-crop processing.
But in violation of Ukraine’s current legislation, the company still has
not obtained such an approval. Instead, coastal land for three free berths was
in late 2015 hastily given by Odesa Regional State Administration to LLC Energo
Product Ltd, a company affiliated with agricultural tycoon Oleh Bakhmatyuk. Even
though before that, another enterprise owned by Bakhmatyuk obtained land for the
construction of two more berths in Yuzhny port.
Allseeds Black Sea company, which is committed to transparency and openness
in its actions, was forced to defend its interests in court. At its request, the
Commercial Court of Odesa Region ruled the land orders concerning LLC Energo Product void
and illegal, and canceled them.
On April 22, 2016, during the Ukrainian Infrastructure Forum’16 in Kyiv, Saakashvili
said that he had proposed to initiate mediation on disputed issues, and that
both parties had agreed to this. He also said that he would act according to
the results of the mediation.
The mediator of the dispute, Dr. Vasyl Kysil who, by a twist of fate,
happens to have been the governor’s professor, mentioned in his report that it
was possible to reach a compromise and agreement between the parties, but for
that Odesa Regional State Administration must act not as an observer, but as a
party interested in finding a legal solution to this problem, guided by national
investment interests.
The Allseeds Black Sea company hopes that Odesa Governor Saakashvili will
follow the recommendations of the authoritative lawyer as soon as possible, as
well as fulfill the promises he gave in his bold statements. He has every
reason to do so.
