Odesa – The property of the state-run Black Sea Steamship Company (BSSC) has been sequestered. The Ministry of Internal Affairs said the company’s officials are suspected of illegal alienation of over 400 million hryvnias worth of property.
The preliminary investigation established that the suspects had been using fake companies to sign illegal investment treaties in violation of the financial rehabilitation plan approved in February 2006 without holding open bids or obtaining consent from the creditors committee and the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The fictitious companies assumed partial liability for the BSSC’s bonds (over 30 million hryvnias) and received ownership rights over its real assets.
The objects of this illegal transaction include a sanatorium with over 13 hectares of land, an office building on Derybasivska Street (with the total area of 5,000 square meters), the Black Sea Yacht Club, the Black See Marine Veterans holiday hotel, etc. Their market value was about 400 million hryvnias in 2006.
The Black Sea Transport Prosecutor’s Office has opened criminal proceeding under Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Abuse of power or office”). Top-priority investigative activities have already been carried out.
On Nov. 13, 2009, the officials of the Black Sea Prosecutor’s Office searched the BSSC headquarters. Mykola Serediuk, head of the Odesa Oblast State Administration, maintains that the oblast authorities have no influence on the BSSC’s objects that are now owned by other structures.
“I set a task before the head of the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) in Odesa oblast to sort this out. Most top arbitration officials failed to preserve the assets belonging to the Black Sea Steamship Company. All in all, at present it owns about 40 architectural monuments in downtown Odesa. They are in the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport and the State Property Fund of Ukraine, rather than the Odesa Oblast State Administration.
“Today, we witness attempts to divide the company’s real assets which survived the robbery of the first post-Soviet years, when 365 vessels were distributed among the party and Komsomol bosses.”
Serediuk also promised to keep an eye on the situation in the steamship company in the future.
In October, the court ruled to continue the financial rehabilitation of the BSSC. Prior to that, the Black Sea Transport Prosecutor’s Office filed an appeal demanding that the auction be banned. According to the data provided by law enforcing bodies, offices in downtown Odesa were about to be sold off at the price of residential apartments, while vessels, at the price of cars.
In August 2008, according to the ruling of the Oblast Commercial Court, Volodymyr Shniakin was appointed turnaround manager of the BSSC. A financial rehabilitation plan was approved, and Shniakin pledged he “would not let embezzle” the company’s assets any more.
On her visit to Odesa in March, 2009, Oleksandra Kuzhel, head of the State Committee for Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship, said that the Ministry of Economy had annuled Shniakin’s license of an arbitration manager. However, the license was soon renewed. The Ministry of Transport and Communications filed a court appeal against Shniakin’s appointment as turnaround manager, citing among the reasons the fact that the Ministry’s approval had not been sought for his appointment.
Before that, the duties of the arbitration manager were performed by the BSSC president, Yevhen Kozhevin. In February 2008, he was arrested on charges of abuse of office during his stint with the Odesa Railroad company. In May 2009, the Zavodsky district court in Mykolaiv acquitted Kozhevin. According to his words, the steamship company is a hostile-takeover target for certain high-ranking figures whose names he, however, did not mention.
In spring, the Black Sea Steamship Company was entered on the list of businesses to be prepared for sale in 2009. The relevant order was issued by Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers.
Back in 1991, the BSSC had 350 vessels in its main fleet and over 1,000 fleet auxiliaries. Before the collapse of the USSR, the company made one billion dollars in annual profit. However, as soon as in 1993, it ran up a debt of over 200 million dollars. That year the joint-stock corporation Blasko was created, and the BSSC ships were transferred to it. Most of them were subsequently sold.
In the summer of 2008, the BSSC’s fleet comprised six vessels.
In 2003, following the ruling of the Odesa Oblast Commercial Court, the bankruptcy procedures regarding the BSSC were initiated. In February 2006, the company’s creditors opted for financial rehabilitation, i.e., a financial measure to support a failing business, which allows to stave off bankruptcy and liquidation.
