Non-public millionaire Orlov seeks salvation from prison and bankruptcy

Non-public millionaire Orlov seeks salvation from prison and bankruptcy

The first is still unclear, the second is almost inevitable.

The group "Energoimpex" of former MP from the Party of Regions Andriy Orlov is facing serious problems. At the end of January, a creditors’ meeting of LLC "Energoimpex" (the key company of the group, whose financial center is considered to be Europrombank, owned by the Orlov family) took place. At the meeting, a decision was made to file a petition for pre-trial rehabilitation procedures and to approve the corresponding plan. The application for this was submitted to the Donetsk Regional Commercial Court a few days later, but on February 6, it was returned to the applicant without consideration.

The reason is banal - the lawyers of "Energoimpex" did not attach a whole heap of necessary documents and confirmations to the application, ranging from evidence of the official announcement of the creditors’ meeting to certificates confirming the total amount of the company’s creditor debt. Not to mention the approval of the rehabilitation plan by the creditors whose claims are secured by the debtor’s assets. "Energoimpex" turned out to have several such creditors.

The clumsy attempt by the company to achieve a moratorium on meeting creditors’ demands without entering bankruptcy proceedings (which is what pre-trial rehabilitation involves) has several explanations. Firstly, "Energoimpex" is experiencing quite significant financial problems. According to journalists, in the nine months of 2016, the company’s sales amounted to only 36 million UAH, while the annual program planned for "Energoimpex" to earn almost 80 million UAH in revenue. In physical terms, the decline was also significant - the volume of coal processing by the company during this period amounted to only 616,000 tons, whereas during the same period in 2015, it exceeded 820,000 tons. On the other hand, initiating bankruptcy proceedings is unprofitable since the company’s main activity - coal enrichment at its own plant "Dzerzhynska" in Toretsk - involves participating in tenders held by state customers. And as is known, candidates against whom bankruptcy proceedings are opened are not allowed.

The second point is the presence of several dissatisfied creditors at "Energoimpex" (not including "Donintervuhillya," founded last year by people from Orlov’s orbit, to which the coal enrichment plant "Shcherbynivska" in Toretsk was transferred, as well as "PK Energoimpex," which owns the enrichment plant "Selydivska" - it was these companies with a "support group" that voted for the pre-trial rehabilitation of Orlov’s brainchild). The main one is Prominvestbank. Back in 2012, it opened a credit line for LLC "Energoimpex" secured by movable assets, which Orlov’s company ceased to service. As a result, in 2015, the bank initiated litigation with the debtor and won the first instance - in April 2016, the Commercial Court of the Zaporizhzhya Region ordered the company to repay the overdue debt on the loan amounting to USD 4.175 million and almost USD 670,000 in interest. "Energoimpex" managed to drag out this process, bringing it to the Supreme Economic Court, but sooner or later, the verdict may come into legal force. And to minimize the consequences, it seems that the ultimately unsuccessful operation called "pre-trial rehabilitation" was conceived.

Furthermore, the group of Andriy Orlov is not reassured about the future due to a criminal case initiated by the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office in November last year (No. 42016050000001179), under Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine ("Appropriation, embezzlement of property, or taking possession of property through abuse of position"). Within its scope, investigators began to very actively study the schemes of Orlov’s companies, including "Energoimpex," "regarding the enrichment of extracted coal and the withdrawal of state funds into the shadow economy." In December, the key manager of Orlov - Viktor Cherkasov, whose residence was searched. Moreover, the investigation established that Cherkasov systematically traveled to the so-called "LPR" and "DPR" territories, where he contacted local "leaders". In addition, as noted by journalists, the investigation paid close attention to the peculiar operations of Europrombank, which services companies from the Orlov group, including "Energoimpex". And it is quite possible that certain steps will soon be taken in this direction as well.

According to experts from CRiME, issues with domestic justice may also arise for Mr. Orlov due to his highly ambiguous connections in ORDLO. He has not yet severed business ties with the former deputy from the Party of Regions Oleksandr Bobkov.

Oleksandr Bobkov

This gentleman, having generously financed "Antimaidan" and the terrorist organization "Oplot," is one of the "gray cardinals" of ORDO.

As Tetyana Zarovna writes on the ORD website, today almost the main financial flows in the terrorist enclave belong to the Bopkov-Orlov financial-industrial group (Andriy and Volodymyr, the first - a Member of Ukraine’s Parliament of the V and VI convocations, the second - his father-in-law). This financial-industrial group in Donetsk is understood as the coal corporation "Energoimpex," which owns 8 coal enrichment plants, the Horlivka coke-chemical plant, a transport company, the family-owned "Europrombank," a metallurgical plant "Energokapital," and a hotel in occupied Crimea. And it is said that coal from the "squeezed" private and state mines, as well as "pit digging," is exported from occupied territories to Ukraine through Orlovs and Bobkov. Allegedly, MP Yefim Zvyahilskyi was also affected by these figures. They say that the Zasyadko mine also passed into the hands of Bobkov-Orlovs, and in the ministry under Nasalyk, they receive a good percentage from this business.

In "DPR," Bobkov maintains close ties with the "Minister of Revenue and Duties Oleksandr Tymofeyev (the same "Tashkent," with whom Nasalyk negotiated coal supplies to Ukraine). The "Republican Bank of the DPR" is also controlled by Bobkov and Orlovs, and it is managed by the former head of the board of Orlovs’ "Europrombank" (Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, 11, Kyiv), and "Minister" Tymofeyev together with Bobkov controls all "nationalized" (taken from those who broke ties with "DPR") firms.

(To be continued...)

Prepared for CRiME by Arsen Pavliv based on materials from OLIGARH and ORD.