Supreme Court Confirms Legality Of Zhevaho's Ownership Of 40.19% Of Poltava GOK Shares

The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the legality of the sale in November 2002 of 40.19% of the shares of Poltava Mining and Processing Plant (Horishni Plavni, Poltava Region), to companies related to Ferrexpo AG (Switzerland).

This was stated in the court notice, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court partially satisfied the cassation appeals of PrJSC Dilovi Partnery [Business Partners] and the company Ferrexpo AG: canceled the decision of the court of appeal, changed the decision of the court of first instance in the motivational part, and left it in force in the other part," the message says.

On November 18, 2002, the companies Trimcroft Services, Calefort Developments, Emsworth Assets, Gilson Investments sold to the companies Eastcoast United, Statex Corp., Newport Inc., Sayers Holdings, related to Ferrexpo, 26.49 million shares of Poltava GOK for USD 27 million.

After a series of resales of shares, as well as an increase in the statutory fund of the GOK, Ferrexpo AG became the owner of the control package of the combine at the end of 2005.

At the same time, this agreement was contested by the sellers, in connection with which a court proceeding was initiated in November 2005, the result of which was the issuance of a verdict of the High Economic Court of Ukraine in April 2010, by which the purchase and sale agreement was recognized as invalid.

In its turn, the Supreme Court in December 2014 annulled the decision of the High Economic Court regarding the satisfaction of the claim for the invalidation of the contract of purchase and sale of securities of the combine, and the case was referred to a new cassation hearing.

In 2015, the High Economic Court confirmed the legality of the sale of 40.19% of Poltava GOK to Ferrexpo-related companies.

In 2020, the former shareholders of GOK again contested the sale of shares in the plant. At the same time, the Economic Court of the city of Kyiv refused to satisfy the claims, and the Northern Economic Court of Appeal canceled this decision and adopted a new one, which satisfied the claims in part: it recognized the disputed contract as invalid in the contested part, demanded from the ownership of Ferrexpo AG the packages of shares in favor of Trimcroft Services Limited, Calefort Developments Limited, Emsworth Assets Limited and Gilson Investments Limited and ordered the depository institution to credit the shares to the accounts of the specified companies, and refused the rest of the claims.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, in 2022, compared to 2021, Ferrexpo reduced the production of pellets by 46% to 6.1 million tons.

In 2022, the company reduced its profit 4 times to USD 220 million, reducing its revenue 2 times to USD 1.25 billion.

The majority shareholder of the Ferrexpo group is businessman Kostiantyn Zhevaho.