30 October 2018, Tuesday, 17:31 118

Justice Ministry: Court's Decision To Oblige NACB To Open Case Against Yatsenyuk And Petrenko Unprecedented Pressure On Cabinet

Редактор: Daria Zubkova

The Justice Ministry of Ukraine considers unprecedented the pressure on the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine as a result of a court's decision to oblige the National Anticorruption Bureau (NACB) to open a criminal case against former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Minister of Justice Pavlo Petrenko.

Press service of the Justice Ministry has said this in a statement, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"The court's decision to oblige the NACB to open a case against Cabinet of Ministers' officials is an unprecedented pressure on the Government, Justice Ministry and legal advisers, such as Latham & Watkins and Hogan Lovells, that protect interests of the state of Ukraine and whose services cost the country USD 5.5 billion in the case against Ukrnafta's stockholders," the statement says.

According to the Justice Ministry, the information spread by the media company about abuse of office by ministry's top officials within the framework of acquisition of legal services to represent Ukraine within consideration of appeals submitted by the minority stockholders of Ukrnafta at the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC; Sweden) is absolutely false.

Given the fact that the hearing of the appeal against Ukraine will take place early in 2019, the promulgation of false information according to the Justice Ministry aims to discredit the institutions authorized to protect national interests of Ukraine at international courts.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on October 17, the Solomiyanskyi District Court of Kyiv obliged the NACB to open a criminal case against Yatsenyuk and Petrenko suspected of embezzlement of state funds and money laundering.