Ekotechnik Nikopol LLC (TIU Canada) will contest the decision of the Kyiv Economic Court, which rejected the company’s claims to Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant (NFP), which disconnected its 10.5 MW solar power plant from the power grid in March 2020.
“TIU Canada has announced the intention to file an appeal against the decision of the first instance court in the case against NFP on the illegal shutdown of the power plant. This action is due to the decision of the Kyiv Economic Court dated January 26, which ruled in favor of NFP, despite the significant amount of evidence that was presented by the legal team of the company,” according to a press release.
TIU Canada noted that such a court decision is not the only case for international investors in Ukraine, which leads to a decrease in foreign direct investment in the country due to lack of the rule of law and the spread of corruption.
“Ukrainians and foreign investors are tired of oligarchy and injustice. The Euro-Atlantic aspirations of the Ukrainian people will never bear fruit if the administration does not carry out real judicial reform and a complete deoligarchization of the economy and power. Today, the efforts of the state are insufficient and useless against entrenched interests that regularly undermine the efficiency of activities of Ukrainian institutions – judicial or bureaucratic,” President of TIU Canada Michael Yurkovich said.
As reported, the 10.5 MW solar station was disconnected from the power grid by NFP in March 2020. TIU Canada noted that NFP took advantage of the fact that the solar station was connected to a substation located on its territory, and explained the need for disconnection by carrying out repair work. The shutdown caused the company losses exceeding EUR1.5 million, which continue to grow.
TIU Canada has been operating in Ukraine since 2016. The company put into operation a 10.5 MW solar power plant in Nikopol in January 2018, an 11 MW solar plant in Mykolaiv region in April 2019. In addition, TIU Canada launched a 33 MW solar power plant in Odesa region. The company’s investments in solar energy, which became the first investor in Ukraine under the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA), amounted to over $ 65 million.
Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant is controlled by EastOne Group, created in the fall of 2007 as a result of restructuring Interpipe Group, and also by Privat Group (both based in Dnipro).
Ukrainian state and private notaries in 2020 certified 217,810 contracts for the sale of land plots, which is 27.8% more than in 2019.
As reported on the website of the Ukrainian Agrarian Association, an increase in the number of contracts provoked the adoption on March 31, 2020 of a law on the conditions for the turnover of agricultural land, although this law will come into force only on July 1, 2021.
According to the association, in the fourth quarter of last year, almost 75,000 sale contracts were certified, while in the third – about 60,000, and in the second – about 45,000.
As the association said, a similar situation is with donation agreements, the total number of which in the past year, according to notaries, increased by 9.6%, to 55,980 and in the fourth quarter the number was close to 20,000.
The association said that in 2019 the number of contracts for the purchase and sale of land plots increased by 12.9%, and in 2018 – by only 1.2%, donation contracts – decreased by 1.1% (in 2018 it increased by 3.1%).
As reported, at the first stage of the law on the turnover of agricultural land – until December 31, 2023 – it will be allowed to sell land plots only to citizens of Ukraine in the amount of no more than 100 hectares per person, as well as exclusion for public needs and exchange of land plots with a difference of the normative monetary evaluation of no more than 10%.
Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) from March 1 will resume a number of flights that were canceled due to quarantine restrictions, and will increase the frequency of flights on the most popular routes.
According to the press service of UIA, in particular, in early March it is planned to resume flights from Kyiv to Geneva and Prague, at the end of March – from Kyiv to Larnaca, Vilnius, Barcelona and Chisinau.
In addition, communication between Odesa and Istanbul will be resumed.
The company plans to increase the frequency of flights on the Kyiv-Dubai route (to six flights a week), and from May – to Istanbul (to 21 per week).
Additionally, UIA will operate flights on the following routes: Kyiv-Delhi (February 25, March 5, March 13 and March 18) and Kyiv-Tashkent (February 28, March 10, March 21 and March 31, return flight the next day).
In March, it is also planned to increase the frequency of flights to daily (seven times a week) on routes from Kyiv to Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, Tbilisi, Yerevan and Tel Aviv. At the same time, with the beginning of summer navigation on flights to Tel Aviv, it is planned to increase the frequency to 11 flights, from May – to 14.
As reported, UIA plans a gradual long-term restoration of the original route network in 2021. In particular, from the beginning of the 2021 summer season, it is planned to launch flights on 43 international and seven domestic routes, which will restore full-fledged air traffic from the regions of Ukraine with numerous European countries through the hub at Boryspil International Airport (Kyiv).
Starting from April 2021, UIA plans to restore its own route network by 64% of the 2019 volume.
Minister of Health of Ukraine Maksym Stepanov has left from Boryspil Airport to India to conduct direct negotiations with manufacturers on additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022.
“Kyiv-Dubai-Delhi-Pune. I will be at my destination place in Pune in 17 hours. We are preparing for negotiations with the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world – Serum Institute of India,” Stepanov wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday evening.
According to him, the pandemic will be a global problem for the next several years.
“We understand that it is necessary to contract additional volumes now,” the minister said.
“The main task is to reach the already contracted 12 million doses, to reach direct agreements for the supply of additional volumes of Oxford/AstraZeneca and NovaVax vaccines in 2021-2022 directly with the manufacturer,” Stepanov emphasized.
He also noted that he will personally control the dispatch of the first batch. “The importance of the cargo obliges,” the head of the department added.
The Latvian pharmaceutical concern Olainfarm has expanded its marketing team and set up fully operating representative office in Ukraine, the company said in a press release posted on the GlobeNewswire website.
According to the press release, 25 Olainfarm employees will provide a full-fledged presence in 14 cities of Ukraine, in particular, Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv.
The capacity expansion helped to raise the company’s local impact by reaching 63,000 healthcare professionals and about 100,000 digital contacts in a 2020 campaign, executed in the second part of the year. The project contributed to the adoption of a positive decision to expand the company’s presence in Ukraine.
Olainfarm, a part of Olainfarm Group, is one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in the Baltic States offering high quality medicine and chemical pharmaceutical products. Its product portfolio includes over 60 finished dosage forms, 25 active pharmaceutical ingredients and over 20 intermediates.
Subsidiaries are located in Ukraine, Lithuania, Turkey and Kyrgyzstan, and representative offices – in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Tajikistan, Albania, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan.
Auchan Retail Ukraine expects to reclaim ownership of the land plot in Odesa, however, in the event of a negative result in the Ukrainian courts, the company will consider applying to international arbitration, since the price set by the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) for this site is not fair and market-oriented, Head of Legal and Compliance of Auchan Retail Ukraine Ruslan Dubas told Interfax-Ukraine.
“On February 16, the first session of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court took place. We hope that the court will ultimately uphold the decision of the Pivnichny [Northern] Economic Court of Appeals and will defend property rights. Namely, it will confirm the invalidity of the results of electronic auctions, which alienated the land plot at a deliberately low price,” he said.
The companies Auchan Retail Ukraine and Ceetrus Ukraine, part of the Auchan holding, defend in the courts the rights to land plots in the village of Lymanka (formerly the village of Mizikevycha, Ovidiopolsky district, Odesa region) with a total area of about 27 hectares, previously seized as material evidence and sold at an auction at a reduced price.
“We cannot now assess the damage that the company experienced by the raiding. But the state of Ukraine has already suffered losses: at least UAH 1.6 million of court fees, which were collected by the executive service from ARMA, but in fact from the state budget,” Dubas said.
As reported, the Prymorsky District Court of Odesa in April 2019 seized land plots with a total area of about 27 hectares and transferred them to the management of ARMA. Subsequently, according to a court decision in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, ARMA sold the plots transferred to its management at an auction at a reduced price for UAH 8.765 million.
Ceetrus Ukraine LLC (before June 2018 – Immoshan Ukraine) is an international developer of shopping centers and retail parks in the country.
Auchan Retail is an international retail company. Its first store was opened in France in 1961.
Auchan Retail Ukraine has been operating in Ukraine since 2008
