| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Lukor Will Lose Oriana
// Ukraine arrested its own assets in joint venture with LUKOIL-Neftehim.
Yesterday Kalush District Court of Ivano-Frankovsk region of Ukraine issued a ruling about the arrest of the assets belonging to the state-control corporation Oriana. These assets were a part of Ukrainian-Russian joint venture LUKOIL-Neftehim (LNH) –Lukor and Carpatneftehim. The court decision was made after the local branch of Internal Ministry charges that Lukor brought an economical damage to Oriana in amount of $3.6 million. The representatives of LNK and Lukor assure that they know nothing about the charges. First Vice-Prime Minister of Ukraine Anatoly Kinakh explained the attention of law-enforcements to the Lukor because the officials have doubts about legitimacy of transferring Oriana assets to Carpatneftehim right before the change of the leadership in the country.
The Lukor (registered in city Kalush, Ivano-Frankovsk region) is largest oil-chemicals enterprise of Ukraine, which was created in 2000 by LUKOIL-Neftehim and and Ukrainian corporation Oriana (99.9 percent of stocks belong to the state). LNH owns 52.7 percent of Lukor shares.The enterprise’s total sales fro 2004 exceeded $200 million and loss- $70 million. In October of 2004 LUKOIL Chemical B.V. and Lukor created the company Carpatneftehim, where Oriana invested into the new company its oil-chemical complex, and Lukor – money, equipment, fuel and raw-materials.
Lukor is under the pressure from the juridical organs and law-enforcements from April. Accordingly to Anatoly Kinakh, first vice-prime ministers of Ukraine, the cabinet of ministers’ gave an order to the General Prosecution and Internal Ministry to examine creation and work of Carpatneftehim. “We have doubts about certain legal aspects,” Kinakh explained. “But we act strictly within a law.”
Let’s note that on June 12 the Ivano-Frankovsk regional court refused to local prosecution office and Oriana in satisfaction of their claim to recognize as a unlawful the transfer of Lukor property into the Carpatneftehim. However, on June 14 Ukrainian Internal Ministry pressed the criminal charges against Oriana’s chairman for abuse of his powers. “He is being suspected in signing in favor of Lukor and obviously unprofitable for Oriana deal. As a result, the state took a loss of 1.4 million grivnas ($280,000 –Kommersant).” One month after, the Ivano-Frankovsk regional authorities applied to President Yushenko, parliament, cabinet of minister and Ukranian Security and Defense Council, asking to speed up the resolution of the situation with transfer of Lukor assets to Carpatneftehim.
Finally, yesterday local branch of Internal Ministry in Ivano-Frankovsk published information that starting from 2000 Lukor was unlawfully using Oriana trade-mark during its chemical export operations. “Thus, they brought the loss of 18 million grivnas ( about $3.6 million -Kommersant) upon Oriana,” the Internal Ministry stated. The ministry also asked Kalush Court to rule about the compensation of Oriana’s losses. As a result, the court issued the ruling requesting to arrest Oriana’s assets that were integrated into Lukor and then in Carpatneftehim. The State Property Fund appraised these assets at $1 billion. However, the filed experts say that the number is way to overblown. The arrest will not stop the production, but, in the same it will not allow to sell or rent out the enterprise to a third party.
“We cannot say anything about the case because the prosecution office did not gave us any notice,” Lukor’s press-service commented. “The Lukor’s and Carpatneftehim’s business is lawful. The prosecution was already tried to charge us before, but then the charges were dropped. We hope, this time result would be the same.” In the same time, the representatives of the LUKOIL-Ukraine said:” It is unclear, why law enforcements have that many complaints against us. We honestly invested money and were conducting legitimate business.” The LNH published yesterday the announcement that “the information about the arrest of Lukor’s assets is incorrect” and Russian company reserve a right for itself to ask a court to protect our business reputation.”
“The president, prime-minister and speaker recently signed a document that provides guarantees to investors. For that reason, nobody is going to take Lukor away,” Vladimir Demekhin, deputy Chairman of the parliamentary committee of industrial policy, said. “However, the pressure still might continue. And the goal is to make LNH show profit and make them to take care about social development of the city Kalush.” “In case with Oriana, it is doubtful that the state will recuperate the lost profit, rather it might lose an investor,” Igor Poltavets, expert with Kiev’s Institue of Economic Research and Political Consultations, said to Kommersant.
Kommersant will be monitoring further event development.
Oleg Gavrish
All the Article in Russian as of July 29, 2005
|
|
|
