Business New Europe: Yanukovych family muscles in on Quinn's Ukraine shopping mall

While Sean Quinn Sr, once Ireland's richest man, goes to jail in Dublin for diverting assets placed under court injunction, bne enquiries indicate that one of the assets in question, Kyiv's Ukraina shopping mall, has been pulled into the orbit of the family of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych – and out of the reach of Ireland's authorities who claim it.

Ireland has been following on tenterhooks the slow motion fall of tycoon Sean Quinn Sr, formerly Ireland's richest man but now a bankrupt jailbird. Part of the action has been set in Ukraine, including the drama's top-rating "episode": a hidden camera showing secret talks in Kyiv in January between Quinn family members and shadowy off-camera Ukrainians, which was leaked to press in July. The talks centred on the fate of the Ukraina shopping mall in the heart of Kyiv, which Sean Quinn owned, and which Ireland's state-owned bank that was set up to try to clean up the mess of bad loans caused by the financial crisis is trying to recover, in lieu of Quinn's $3.5bn debt.

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