The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has filed an appeal against a ruling of the Economic Court of Kyiv obliging the Ukrainian government to pay over Hr 3.1 billion (around $390 million) of the debts of the United Energy Systems of Ukraine corporation to the Russian Defense Ministry, the press service of the Justice Ministry of Ukraine reported on Thursday.
“We inform that on September 25, 2012, a representative of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine filed an appeal against the court ruling at Kyiv Economic Court of Appeals,” the Justice Ministry said in response to a query from Interfax-Ukraine.
As reported, on September 19 Kyiv Economic Court partially satisfied a suit from the Russian Defense Ministry concerning a debt accumulated by Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine (UESU), ordering Ukraine to pay Hr 3.11 billion ($400 million) to Russia’s defense agency.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry filed at Kyiv Economic Court a lawsuit against the Ukrainian government for the non-payment of Hr 3.239 billion under a criminal case on the activities of the UESU Corporation. The plaintiff also asked the court to summon the State Treasury Service of Ukraine as a third party on the side of the defendant in the case. The UESU is the third party on the side of the defendant in the case.
The Russian ministry claims that, in the 1990s, the UESU, which was then headed by former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko, failed to meet its commitments on supplies for the Russian military under a 1997 agreement. The then Ukrainian government of Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko allegedly provided state guarantees that the commitments would be fulfilled.
UESU representative Oleksandr Kovalchuk said in court that Lazarenko had made his promises that UESU would meet its commitments in letters and that they could not be legally qualified as state guarantees. Kovalchuk also said that alleged pressure from the Ukrainian government had prevented the UESU from fulfilling its commitments.
Ukrainian government representatives also told the court there had been no state guarantees and argued that the statute of limitations made the suit invalid.
Meanwhile, a district court in Kharkiv is hearing the criminal case against former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko on the activities of the UESU. The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine (PGO) has filed a lawsuit against Tymoshenko with the demand that she pay UAH 19.5 million under the UESU case. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka said that the UESU case against Tymoshenko was illegally closed in 2005 under pressure from former Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, following the appointment of Tymoshenko as prime minister.
