Ukrainian Justice Ministry: Foreign courts did not oblige Kyiv to pay Yanukovych
For the time being, there are no foreign judgments or decisions from the EU General Court or the European Court of Justice regarding the recovery of funds from Ukraine in favor of its ex-president, Viktor Yanukovych, or his family. This was reported in a statement by the Ministry of Justice and published on its website on Friday.
“At the same time, Yanukovych’s lawyers’ statements about the alleged recovery of funds from Ukraine in favor of the ex-president are nothing more than a manipulation of public opinion,” the Ministry of Justice asserts.
On March 15, 2016, representatives of Yanukovych and his sons filed a petition to the General Court of the European Union. The petition aims to determine the amount of legal fees that can be recovered upon the results of Ukraine’s attempt to combine the cases on the Yanukovychs’ appeal against the EU sanctions on them. “However, these applications have not been examined yet,” the Ministry of Justice stressed.
“Accordingly, the message stating that a particular court in the European Union allegedly obliged Ukraine to compensate the lawsuit charges in the amount of UAH 6,378,400 [USD 245,323] to the ex-president Viktor Yanukovych and his family in their appeal against the European Union’s property sanctions imposed on them, does not correspond to the facts at all,” the statement says.
The Ministry noted that so far Yanukovych has not confirmed the expenses in connection with Ukraine’s filing of applications for support of the EU sanctions against him; neither has he proven the amounts of such expenses before the court. “Ukraine cannot be obliged to pay any funds in favor of Yanukovych, and his family has sufficient legal instruments to protect this position in any judicial institution,” the Ministry of Justice emphasized.
The Ministry believes that Yanukovych’s representatives have claimed astronomical amounts of fees solely for the purpose of manipulating the public opinion.
On October 13, British law firm Joseph Hage Aaronson LLP announced that the EU Court of Justice dismissed Ukraine’s appeal concerning the order for its compensation of legal expenditures to the former president Viktor Yanukovych and his sons in the amount of UAH 6,378,400.