The courts of first and appellate instances declared the decision of the National Bank of Ukraine to liquidate Concord bank illegal. This is not the only violation, because the bank's shareholders face systematic violations of their rights by the regulator and its representatives. A key role in the case was played by the chief lawyer of the NBU, Alexander Zima, whose actions called into question not only the legality of the liquidation process and undermine confidence in the country's financial system, UNN reports.
The courts of first and appellate instances declared illegal the decision of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine to revoke the banking license and liquidate Concord bank dated August 1, 2023. However, according to co-owner of the bank Elena Sosedka, this beginning of liquidation was preceded by 1.5 years of prosecution of her bank by the regulator.
"Sosedka sisters are convinced that the chairman of the tax committee of the Rada, Daniil Hetmantsev, is behind the liquidation of Concord. They assume that this is done in order to concentrate the operations of the gambling business in one hand. Systematic inspections and fines of the National Bank, pressure on the bank and biased attitude for a year and a half are confirmed by a targeted campaign against the bank," reads a video posted on Olena Sosedka's Facebook page.
In particular, the NBU applied fines to Concord for alleged miscoding (incorrect encoding of transactions after the legalization of gambling in Ukraine), which the bank actually began to fight for long before it became mainstream. The shareholders did not agree with such decisions of the regulator and appealed them in court. In total, four lawsuits were filed to cancel fines in the amount of almost 63.5 million hryvnias.
However, the bank was in such a hurry to destroy it that the regulator, without waiting for court decisions, decided to withdraw the financial institution from the market, which was actually declared illegal. However, violations of the law did not end there.
Probably in order to" cover his tracks", the director of the legal department of the National Bank, Alexander Zima, who is also the chairman of the Administrative Council of the deposit guarantee fund for individuals, ordered the fund to withdraw the claims of Concord representatives. This happened almost immediately after the Concord team was deprived of the opportunity to manage the bank.
The culmination was the liquidation of Concord without waiting for the results of a judicial appeal against the previous fine. Moreover, the head of the NBU's legal department, Oleksandr Zima, ordered the liquidator to withdraw claims against the National Bank. This made it impossible to further appeal against the regulator's actions
Now the police are investigating criminal proceedings due to possible abuse of power or official position by the chief lawyer of the NBU Alexander Zima.
The case was opened because of a letter from Alexander Zima to the Fund, in which he, on behalf of the National Bank, recommended that the DGF withdraw claims filed by Concord Bank against the NBU even before the decision to liquidate the bank.
The deposit guarantee fund listened to this recommendation, which, according to Elena Sosedka, co-founder of Concord bank, deprived shareholders of their constitutional right to a fair trial.
The criminal proceedings against Zima were held in the state Bureau of Investigation for more than 9 months and during this time no investigative actions were carried out on it. Co-founder of Concord Elena and Yulia Sosedka repeatedly demanded that investigators recognize them as victims in this case and even received appropriate court orders. However, these requirements were ignored.
The shareholders ' hope for progress in the investigation appeared after the prosecutor's office transferred the case to the Pechersk Police Department for investigation.
After that, investigators recognized Elena and Yulia Sosedka as victims in the Zima's case, which automatically confirmed that the official's actions caused harm. Experts interviewed by UNN indicate that The Next Step in the investigation of this criminal proceeding should be to interrogate winter and serve him with a notice of suspicion.
Zima's actions also harmed the state. After all, they call into question the independence of the DGF Directorate and negatively affect Ukraine's interaction with international financial institutions. In particular, this may cause serious concern to the International Monetary Fund, which pays special attention to the work of the financial sector of our country.