SBI Merges Cases Against National Bank Officials: Accident or Pattern?

Ukrainian law enforcement officers are investigating several criminal cases involving officials, representatives of the former and current top management of the National Bank of Ukraine, UNN reports . However, it turns out that there is no movement in the criminal proceedings conducted by the investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation, and therefore a logical question arises: is the SBI deliberately merging these cases?

From of the latter, there is a criminal proceeding involving Oleksandr Zyma, Director of the NBU Legal Department. The SBI is investigating his alleged abuse of power or office, which led to grave consequences (part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code).

Case concerns Zyma's instruction to the Deposit Guarantee Fund to withdraw four lawsuits against the NBU filed by Concord Bank. In court, the bank demanded that the NBU cancel fines totaling almost UAH 63.5 million. It is worth noting here that Oleksandr Zyma, in addition to his position at the National Bank, is also the chairman of the Fund's administrative board, which appoints and dismisses its management. Therefore, it is unlikely that the DGF could have failed to comply with its boss's instructions. That is why the DGF withdrew the lawsuits filed by the bank before the liquidation began. In other words, Zyma's conflict of interest is obvious.

Despite the fact that the Territorial Department of the State Bureau of Investigation in Kyiv opened criminal proceedings in December last year, no suspects have been served in the case and there are doubts that it is being investigated at all. Zyma continues to work quietly both at the National Bank and in his role as "supervisor" of the Fund.

Moreover, in April of this year, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv recognized Yulia Sosedka, a co-founder of Concord Bank, as a victim in this criminal proceeding. According to the co-owner of Concorde, Olena Sosedka, Zyma deprived the bank's shareholders of their constitutional right to a fair trialby his instructions. However, SBI investigators have not yet complied with the court ruling and have not handed Yulia Sosedka a memo on the rights and obligations of the victim.

Experts suggestthat Zyma is not responding to the criminal proceedings because she feels a strong rear in the form of the National Bank's leadership, with whom she has had friendly relations since her time at Oschadbank.

In addition, both the current and former management of the National Bank are also involved in criminal proceedings under articles including "abuse of power or position that led to serious consequences.

In addition to Zyma's case, the SBI reported that it was investigating a criminal proceeding involving Kateryna Rozhkova, the first deputy head of the National Bank, and Kyrylo Shevchenko, the former head of the regulator.

Pursuant to Article 216 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, the SBI investigative bodies, among other things, conduct pre-trial investigations of criminal offenses committed by the NBU Governor, his First Deputy and Deputy Governors. As of today, the SBI investigators have not served any notice of suspicion to Rozhkova K. V. within the framework of criminal proceedings,

The SBI has not specified the facts underlying the criminal proceedings, the articles of the Criminal Code under which it is being investigated, or any other information. No suspicions have been served in this case, so there is reason to believe that it has stalled, just like the others.

It is worth noting that Rozhkova continued to work at the NBU even after the court ordered her, along with other members of the board and supervisory board of Platinum Bank, to return the funds that were illegally withdrawn from the bank before it was declared insolvent.

We should also mention the infamous PrivatBank case, which was investigated by the SBI in late 2020. At that time, the State Bureau of Investigation was investigating the possible involvement of a number of National Bank officials, including former head of the regulator Valeria Gontareva and the well-known Kateryna Rozhkova, in the embezzlement of funds worth more than UAH 900 million during the nationalization of PrivatBank in 2016. It will not be difficult to guess one of the articles of the Criminal Code under which the criminal proceedings were opened.

The Main Investigation Department of the State Bureau of Investigation, based on the results of consideration of the appeal of an NGO, entered information into the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations on 31.12.2020 on the grounds of criminal offenses under Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine,

In this case, as well as in others investigated by the SBI, there are no suspicions, no searches, no arrests..

Another interesting case concerns the NBU's Financial Monitoring Department. In 2019, the National Police opened criminal proceedings due to alleged abuse of power or office by employees of this department, namely that they "abused their power, intentionally with the aim of obtaining undue advantage, during 2017-2019, acting in the interests of third parties, carried out formal verification of the origin of funds allocated for the capitalization of banks, knowing for certain that their origin did not correspond to the documents provided." Investigators pointed out that the officials may have even received bribes.

Officials of the NBU's Financial Monitoring Department, when conducting inspections of banking institutions for compliance with the legislation on financial monitoring and currency legislation, receive undue benefits from managers and owners of banking institutions for not fully reporting existing violations of the law in banking institutions,

Law enforcers believedthat the National Bank officials "for the purpose of personal enrichment do not reflect or enter inaccurate information about violations of economic standards of banks' activity in the certificates of inspection of banks".

The case was later transferred to the SBI. The courts have extended the investigation several times. It is not known for certain whether the SBI simply closed the proceedings or whether it ended up in a long and dark drawer of uninvestigated cases.

To summarize, it is clear that the National Bank has as many criminal cases as a stray dog has fleas, and not all of them are known in the public domain. But despite this number of proceedings and their public resonance, the SBI keeps filling its "dark drawer" over and over again. Do NBU officials have immunity and criminal cases against them only to extinguish the fire of public outrage?