Lawyer calls for ARMA to be held accountable for non-enforcement of court decisions

By failing to comply with court decisions, the Asset Recovery and Management Agency violates property rights, and therefore it must be obliged to act within the law. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to UNN by Oleh Shram, a lawyer and former advisor to the Director of the State Bureau of Investigation.

Context

Recently, the ARMA has been involved in another scandal. This time it became knownthat the agency, despite four court decisions, has not returned 455,500 euros (almost 22 million hryvnias) to BNK-Ukraine LLC, which is in the process of bankruptcy and liquidation, for more than a year. Because of such actions, ARMA even lost access to its accounts.

If there is a court decision, then they are obliged to return it, and of course, if they do not return it for such a long time, we should raise the issue of bringing them to justice

According to him, such situations are not uncommon. Often, despite court decisions to return seized or arrested property, it is not returned.

This is unacceptable, it is a violation of property rights, and of course we must oblige them to return them. Oblige to act within the law

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Recently, the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) and its head, Olena Duma, have been frequently involved in scandals about ineffective management of seized assets or inaction.

For example, the ARMA was in the spotlight because of the loss of the Royal Romance yacht, which belonged to former MP Viktor Medvedchuk, a suspect in high treason. Despite the yacht's arrest by a Croatian court and its transfer to Ukraine for sale, ARMA has not been able to sell the asset in two years.

After researching the topic, we found out that the main delay in the sale of the yacht of the traitorous ex-MP arose because the head of ARMA, Olena Duma, had been preparing amendments to the legislation on the sale of foreign assets for almost six months. At the same time, at the time of her appointment to the ARMA, the Prosecutor General's Office, together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had already prepared a draft of the changes, but Duma categorically rejected it.

In this regard, the ARMA only launched a tender on March 20, 2024, to select a seller to sell the yacht, and a month later it finally selected the winner. It is worth noting that the selection of the winner took place a month before the expiration of the maximum period of seizure of this asset, which made its sale virtually impossible.

Former MP Ihor Mosiychuk believesthat ARMA head Olena Duma acted in Medvedchuk's interests by delaying the sale of his yacht. He has even filed with the State Bureau of Investigation and the National Police of Ukraine alleging that Olena Duma committed crimes, including in the situation with the yacht.