Almost one-third of business complaints about the actions of law enforcement agencies submitted to the Business Ombudsman Council concern the Economic Security Bureau. This trend has persisted for the second year in a row. The problems entrepreneurs raise include asset seizures and questions regarding the admissibility of investigative actions. The Business Ombudsman Council reported this in response to a request from UNN.
One in three complaints is against the ESB
The Business Ombudsman Council reported that complaints against law enforcement agencies consistently rank second among all business appeals.
In 2025, the Council received 129 such complaints in total, including 37 against the ESB, accounting for 29% of all complaints against law enforcement agencies. In 2026, the ratio practically remained unchanged: of 83 complaints concerning law enforcement, 24 related to the ESB—again 29%
For comparison, during the same period this year, 31 complaints were filed against the National Police, and 19 against the Office of the Prosecutor General.
Overall, according to the Business Ombudsman Council, 71% of complaints concerning law enforcement in 2025 were successfully closed. This year, the share of successfully closed complaints has already reached 52%.
What businesses complain about
A substantial portion of entrepreneurs' appeals is related to asset seizures and investigative actions carried out as part of criminal proceedings.
In particular, a significant share consists of complaints concerning the lifting of asset seizures or assessments of the admissibility of investigative actions authorized by a court. Under its Rules of Procedure, such matters do not fall within the Council's competence
In other words, some of the problems businesses bring to the ombudsman cannot be resolved through this mechanism at all, since they concern procedural decisions and actions within criminal proceedings, which may be assessed exclusively by a court.
The issue of using criminal procedure as an instrument of pressure on business has been repeatedly raised by entrepreneurs and experts. For companies, the seizure of accounts and assets, searches, and the confiscation of documents or equipment mean complications or even a shutdown of operations before a court has established that any crime was committed.
The scandal surrounding aircraft leasing taxation
Despite the fact that Ukrainian tax legislation, which has remained unchanged regarding leasing for decades, and international treaties clearly describe how taxes on helicopter and aircraft leasing should be paid, the Economic Security Bureau decided to change this approach at its own discretion. The ESB is investigating cases involving at least five air carriers, including MAU, "Constanta Airline," "Urga," N3Operations, and "Skyline," over the alleged failure to pay an additional 15% tax on income earned by nonresidents under aircraft leasing agreements into the Ukrainian budget. Investigators equate leasing payments with royalties and treat aircraft and helicopters not as means of transport, but as "equipment."
Law enforcement officers obtained the analytical conclusions after, in 2024, the previous team of the State Tax Service published an article proposing that leasing transactions involving transport with nonresidents of Ukraine be taxed as royalties. The documents, which according to aviation market representatives are similar to one another, as if written "using the same template," formed the basis for criminal cases against air carriers.
Lawyers interviewed by UNN point out that investigators ignore the effective international conventions on the avoidance of double taxation ratified by the Verkhovna Rada. According to them, the automatic assessment of an additional 15% tax in Ukraine without taking into account the provisions of a specific convention is at the very least debatable.
It is worth noting that, according to the State Tax Service, the airlines underwent tax inspections, and violations in the taxation of leasing were established based on only one of them. The remaining tax inspections did not reveal such violations.
Following one inspection of companies in the aviation sector, leasing payments were reclassified as royalties. Only one inspection—the deputy director of the Transfer Pricing Department of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, Viktoriia Kasian, noted.
However, the absence of violations did not prevent the Economic Security Bureau (ESB) from opening criminal cases against the airlines, believing that they had failed to pay 15% in royalties over the past seven years. At the same time, the list of airlines that law enforcement authorities have claims against over leasing may expand at any moment, since around 40 air carriers use leasing. Thus, the entire civil aviation industry could come under attack.
Representatives of the aviation industry have already publicly stated that they are facing pressure from the Economic Security Bureau. According to them, civil aviation has come under threat of destruction due to actions by state regulatory bodies, which could finally bring down companies that survived the closure of the airspace and relocation abroad because of the full-scale war. The Ukrainian Air Transport Association appealed to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Transport and Infrastructure, as well as to the Public Council under the Ministry of Finance, calling for a unified approach to applying tax legislation in the field of aviation leasing.
The trend whereby, for the second consecutive year, almost one-third of business complaints about law enforcement agencies concern the Economic Security Bureau once again raises the question of the need for a complete overhaul of the Bureau. The results of the re-certification of its leadership demonstrated the scale of the personnel problem; however, simply replacing managers may not be enough. Genuine reform requires not only the re-certification of employees at all levels, but also an audit of ESB criminal proceedings, especially those in which entrepreneurs report unjustified prosecution, contentious interpretations of the law, and the use of criminal proceedings as an instrument of pressure on business.