Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has asked leaders at the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) and the Security Service (SBU) to explore the possibility of opening an investigation against judges of Kyiv’s district administrative court, which on April 18 ruled that the nationalization PrivatBank was illegal.
“I appeal to the SBU and to you [Prosecutor General] Yuriy [Lutsenko], after completing all the necessary judicial procedures, to explore the possibility of opening a criminal case into the unjust ruling made by the judges who made these arguments, and to do so without interfering analysis of the ruling as a matter of fact,” Poroshenko said at a meeting of Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council on April 18 evening in Kyiv.
As reported, Ukraine’s government, at the recommendation of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and former shareholders of PrivatBank, the largest of which at that time were Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholiubov, on December 18, 2016, decided to nationalize PrivatBank, the largest Ukrainian financial institution at the time.
Kyiv’s district administrative court on April 18, 2019, recognized the nationalization of the bank as illegal based on a lawsuit filed by Kolomoisky. The NBU and Finance Ministry said they would appeal the ruling after publication by the court of its ruling. Both institutions said the decision to nationalize PrivatBank was correct.
According to the NBU, on January 1, 2019, PrivatBank ranked first in terms of total assets (UAH 525.248 billion) among 77 banks operating in the county.
