Supreme Court does not rule out fraud by MP Stepan Ivakhiv with businessman Yeremeyev's inheritance
The Supreme Court of Ukraine has ruled to check the actions of MP Stepan Ivakhiv regarding the inheritance of his late business partner Ihor Yeremeyev. The Supreme Court's ruling to re-examine the case was published last fall.
As RBK-Ukraine reminds in its own journalistic investigation, the legal conflict between Igor Yeremeyev's widow, Tatyana Yeremeyeva, and his ex-partners Stepan Ivakhiv and Serhiy Lagur has been going on in various instances since 2015. The case is about the distribution of business assets of the Continium group of companies, which is estimated at millions of dollars. The founder of the holding, Ihor Yeremeyev, died without a will, leaving behind a 25% stake in the company that he owned.
As the Supreme Court's decision makes clear, Tatyana Yeremeyeva accused Ivakhiv of deliberately entering into an agreement with his ex-wife to divide the property. According to her, during a fictitious divorce in September 2021, Ivakhiv formally transferred corporate rights to assets to his wife, thereby excluding this share from the inheritance that should have gone to the Yeremeyev family. In October 2024, the Supreme Court panel upheld Tatyana Yeremeyev's cassation appeal against the decisions of previous instances that recognized the MP's actions as legal. The highest court noted that Ivakhiv could have abused his rights by trying to avoid a fair distribution of assets.
The Supreme Court explained the reversal of the decisions of the previous instances by the existence of serious procedural violations. In particular, during the proceedings, Ivakhiv repeatedly changed his position on the need for a notarized divorce agreement with the division of material and financial assets. Initially, he insisted on its existence, but after it was established that there were no such documents, he stated that the agreement was concluded only in writing. In addition, Ivakhiv refused to provide the court with a copy of the agreement.
As a result, the Supreme Court emphasized the need for a thorough investigation of all the circumstances of the case during the new trial, including possible abuse of law, to ensure justice for all parties to the conflict.
The Continuum case is not the only reason why Stepan Ivakhiv is the subject of media interest. As journalists remind us, the former member of the pro-Russian Party of Regions has not attended meetings of the Verkhovna Rada since early 2023, and at the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the Border Guard Service stopped his attempt to illegally cross the border with Poland. Currently, according to RBC-Ukraine, the MP does not live in Ukraine, but lives in the UAE and Cyprus.
The journalists also uncovered a scheme according to which, over 9 years of litigation, Stepan Ivakhiv and Serhiy Lagur withdrew a 25% share of Yeremeyev's inheritance, which should have belonged to his family, in their own favor.