Back in July 2024, the Supreme Court issued a decision obliging the Alliance Bank to pay its debt of UAH 87 million to Naftogaz Trading Gas Supply Company, a subsidiary of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine. The decision is final and not subject to appeal. However, the funds have not yet reached the state's accounts. Why, in conditions when the state is forced to raise taxes for the population, and the whole country is on the eve of a difficult heating season, the management of state-owned companies is in no hurry to receive the tens of millions of hryvnias owed to the state?
This is reported by KP.UA.
The case regarding Naftogaz Trading's lawsuit against the Alliance Bank regarding its refusal to fulfill obligations under the bank guarantee issued to Odesahaz-Postachannia LLC by the bank for participation in the tender for the purchase of natural gas from the state has been considered in courts of various instances since August 2022 In this case, the amount of the debt of the Alliance Bank to Naftogaz Trading amounted to UAH 87 million. At the same time, for more than two years, a similar case was considered in the courts, in which the debt of the Alliance Bank to the state company under a bank guarantee issued to the same company already reached UAH 290 million. In the summer of 2024, the Supreme Court, as part of the panel of judges of the Cassation Economic Court, sided with the state in both cases.
However, the decisions in these cases differ. In the case regarding the debt obligations of the Alliance Bank for UAH 290 million, the court decided to re-examine this case in the Commercial Court of Kyiv. Taking into account the pace of consideration of such cases, the state will not be able to receive the funds due to it and necessary in the conditions of war for a long time. So, in particular, the scandalous case about the debt of the Alliance Bank to NEC Ukrenergo under a bank guarantee of UAH 1.1 billion has been considered by the courts since 2022 and is still under consideration by the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal, whose judges for already almost 2 years cannot determine whose interests they protect.
In July 2024, in the case regarding the debt of the Alliance Bank in the amount of UAH 87 million, the Supreme Court rejected the appeals of the Alliance Bank and the Odesahaz-Postachannia against the decision of the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal, which upheld the Naftogaz Trading's lawsuit. According to the decision of the Northern Court of Appeal, the Alliance Bank must pay not only the debt under the bank guarantee, but also UAH 1.3 million in court fees. However, as of July 2024, the decision of the Supreme Court remains unfulfilled. As reported in the Commercial Court of Kyiv, the Naftogaz Trading has not even received an order to execute the court decision.
Why the state-owned company is not making efforts to get the money that was supposed to arrive in its accounts as early as 2022 is a question for its management. However, it is obvious that such a delay in the execution of the court decision benefits exclusively the Alliance Bank, whose net profit, according to official documents, in 2023 amounted to only UAH 95 million, so the bank simply does not have enough money to pay for the issued bank guarantees.
According to the media, the total amount of debts owed by the Alliance Bank to the Naftogaz under bank guarantees is about UAH 2 billion. According to the court register, the bank owed another UAH 1 billion to UkrGasVydobuvannya. In general, the liabilities of the bank guarantees for April 2024 of the Alliance Bank amounted to almost UAH 6.8 billion, and among the banks that earn from issuing bank guarantees to state enterprises, it occupies the 5th position. At the same time, the sum of the liabilities of the Alliance Bank under bank guarantees is more than 60% of all the bank's assets. And this means that, having issued bank guarantees worth billions of hryvnias and getting rich from their sale by hundreds of millions, the bank obviously did not plan to fulfill its obligations, which is classified by the Criminal Code as fraud.
Who we are: About us, Contacts. How we write news and our principles: Editorial code. We did our best. If you found this valuable – please support us.
To request a correction, please send an email.