Expert: Chief Lawyer of the National Bank Zyma has a patron and therefore feels impunity

Oleksandr Zyma, Director of the Legal Department of the National Bank of Ukraine, is a person close to NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi. That is why he is confident that he will not be prosecuted under the current legislation for the violations committed. This opinion was expressed by security expert Serhiy Shabovta in an exclusive commentary to UNN .

Context

The SBI had earlier opened criminal proceedings against Oleksandr Zyma, director of the legal department of the National Bank of Ukraine , under articles related to abuse of power and official position. The case concerns a letter from the National Bank to the Deposit Guarantee Fund signed by Zyma, in which he recommended that the Fund withdraw the lawsuits filed by Concord Bank against the NBU.  The document referred to four lawsuits filed by the bank against the NBU, in which Concorde demanded that fines totaling almost UAH 63.5 million be canceled. These lawsuits were filed before the NBU decided to liquidate Concorde and put it into temporary administration.

In April of this year , the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv recognized Yulia Sosedka, co-founder of Concord Bank, as a victim in this criminal proceeding. According to Yulia Sosedka, a co-owner of Concorde, Zyma deprived the bank's shareholders of their constitutional right to a fair trial by his instructions. 

In Ukraine, the NBU was headed by a person who was the head of Oschadbank, which never spoiled us with its good performance. A bank that was always on the verge of bankruptcy, and the state simply propped it up (financed it - ed.), and a person with such professional experience became the head of the NBU. What do we want? Now all the subordinates, and the chief lawyer is a person who is close to the chairman, personally fulfill his tasks. That's why he is protected, he (Zyma - ed.) is protected in advance, because he works in a system that is built for corrupt purposes, and under certain obligations to him that he will be protected from persecution

In his opinion, such a situation has existed for years in many state bodies, where, starting with the head and ending with his subordinates, who directly create a circle of legal correspondence, justify certain decisions with documents, know in advance that they do it with impunity and there will be no persecution against them. 

“That's why he (Zyma - ed.) has a patron, and knowing in advance that he will not be punished for this, he does whatever he wants. We have an expression: there must be political will, and so on. But listen, the law should not be governed by someone's political will or lack thereof. The value of the law is that it should be objective. But we don't have that at all. Impunity is rampant. Especially for those in power,” Shabovta said.

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Prior to heading the NBU's Legal Department, Oleksandr Zyma was in charge of the legal department of Oschadbank JSC, where Andriy Pyshnyi was the Chairman of the Board. After the Verkhovna Rada appointed Pyshnyi as the head of the National Bank on October 7, 2022, Zyma became the regulator's chief lawyer.

According to the NBU's website , “The Legal Department is part of the General Block subordination vertical, supervised by the NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi.