Global airport cargo handler Swissport International Limited is accusing its local Ukrainian business partner, Ukraine International Airlines and its owner Aron Mayberg of “conducting a so-called hostile corporate raider attack.”
If Swissport is
ousted, it stands to lose at least $8 million in assets in Ukraine over a legal
spat with UIA in the commercial courts, which initiated a minority-rights case
in June.
UIA’s head of
communications, Yevhenia Satska, said the airline will refrain from comments as
long as the case is ongoing.
UIA, which has a
30 percent stake in Swissport Ukraine, a local joint-venture in which Swissport
International is 70 percent shareholder, says its minority rights were violated
and is seeking to buy out the majority stake for $433,000 and inherit some $8
million worth of assets in Ukraine.
Two lower courts
so far have ruled in favor of UIA, and an appellate court is scheduled to hear
the case on Jan. 30. The appellate hearing has been postponed twice: on Dec. 12
and Jan. 16.
In a letter that
the Kyiv Post obtained, addressed to the International Air Transport
Association dated Nov. 5, signed by Swissport Executive Vice President Global
Cargo John Batten and Johannes Spindler, executive vice president general
counsel and general secretary, Swissport stated that the joint venture in
Ukraine with UIA had seen positive development since 2006, when it was formed.
Swissport’s
communications department, as well as Batten failed to respond to Kyiv Post
requests for comment, as did the IATA.
According to
industry news, since forming the joint-venture Swissport had invested millions
of dollars to expand into Kharkiv and Kyiv’s Zhyliany Airport, including the
purchase of $1.5 million in new equipment and technology.
Companies like
Swissport make sure airports run smoothly by handling passenger transfers at
airports and ensure luggage and cargo go with them, among other services they
provide. Swissport’s arrival to Boryspil has been linked to a significant
decline in lost and stolen luggage.
But things went
sour, alleged the letter, when Israeli citizen Aron Mayberg became UIA’s owner
in 2011.
Little is known
about Mayberg, but he was the founder of AeroSvit in the 1990s, a Ukrainian
airline that recently declared bankruptcy. He was Aerosvit’s director general until December 2008.
“However, over the
recent past, since UIA’s takeover by Mr. Mayberg last year (2011), Mr. Mayberg
and UIA have been conducting a so-called ‘hostile corporate raider attack’
against Swissport International and Swissport Ukraine, by alleging a (baseless)
violation of his/their minority rights, in an attempt to force SPI to forfeit
its shares in Swissport Ukraine,” reads the letter.
When Mayberg took
over UIA, the airline terminated its handling contract with Swissport Ukraine,
in which it has a 30 percent stake. UIA instead chose Aerohandling, an airport
handler once owned by Mayberg, in a tender for which Swissport had also bid.
Mark Skinner, senior vice
president ground handling EMEA for Swissport told U.K.-based The Loadstar: “We hope that the
Ukrainian legal system will deliver justice, even though this has not been the
case so far.”
According to UIA’s latest public account published following the first half of 2012, the airline had an
operational loss of $17 million.
Accounts payable increased by 4.7 percent to $50 million, and debts to
banks by 53 percent to $38.75 million.
Kyiv Post editor Mark
Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
