Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has spoken for the adoption of a special law on the confiscation of real estate and funds in bank accounts that have no official explanation, and believes that the need for such a law may be used in an electoral campaign to the Verkhovna Rada.
“The most urgent issue is an introduction of a law similar to the recent British one – a special law that allows the confiscation of real estate or accounts that have no official explanation. This is the law that Ukraine has needed for a long time,” the prosecutor general said on air of the 112.ua TV channel on Tuesday after the debate in the European Parliament on corruption in Ukraine.
He recalled that the Verkhovna Rada had several times considered the bill on the so-called special confiscation, but failed to pass it. Therefore, at the moment, the law-enforcement agencies confiscate property obtained through criminal means based on the provisions of the old law, and the confiscation procedures are very complicated and “often subject to attacks by interested persons, both publicly and legally.”
“Therefore, we need a law on special confiscation, and it is very important to take into account the British experience, which is very simple and clear: if a law enforcement system asks a question of any citizen or guest of the UK: ‘Please show the sources of, for example, a five-story house in central London’ and if these sources do not exist, this property passes into the state ownership and later is sold at an auction. The same goes for the funds that are frozen in the accounts. From my point of view, such procedure would speed up cleansing Ukraine of corruption and criminality,” Lutsenko said.
At the same time, the prosecutor general said he doubted that such a law could be adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of the current convocation. “I think that this law will not be passed by this parliament, but it can become one of the key concepts around which it is possible to build the next election campaign to the next parliament,” he said.
CONFISCATION, DUBIOUS SOURCES, GENERAL PROSECUTOR, PROPERTY, UK-STYLE
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
Euroins Insurance Group (Bulgaria), which includes Euroins Ukraine (Kyiv), in 2017 increased revenue by 19%, for the first time exceeding BGN 1 billion (EUR 512 million), and quadrupled net profit to BGN 42 million (EUR21.5 million), according to a press release from Euroins Ukraine.
It is also noted that in general the income of Eurohold Bulgaria AD, which includes Euroins Insurance Group, in 2017 increased by 18% compared to the previous year and amounted to BGN 1.2 billion (about EUR615 million). Net profit increased by almost 2.4 times, to BGN 24.4 million (EUR12.5 million), while operating profit (EBITDA) by 65%, to BGN 57.6 million (EUR29 million).
The holding’s net worth as a whole increased to almost BGN 215 million (EUR110 million), while its assets grew by 17%, to BGN 1.33 billion (EUR681 million).
The press release says on April 17, 2018 Euroins Insurance Group purchased Ukraine’s European Travel Insurance (ERV) from the German company ERGO, owned by MunichRe concern.
PJSC Euroins Ukraine has been operating in the Ukrainian insurance market for 25 years. The regional network of Euroins Ukraine covers 26 cities of Ukraine. The weighty share in the company’s portfolio is occupied by KASKO, which is one of the priority activities. The strategy of Euroins Ukraine foresees occupying 5-10% of the Ukrainian insurance market.
Ukrtelecom in January-March 2018 received UAH 153 million of net profit, which is 24.4% more than for the same period in 2017, company director general Yuriy Kurmaz has said at a press conference in Kyiv. According to him, net income for this period fell by 2.9%, to UAH 1.615 billion.
EBITDA decreased by 1.3%, to UAH 383 million, while the EBITDA margin increased by one percentage point to 23.7%.
Kurmaz added that revenue from telecommunications services in the first quarter of this year decreased by 5% compared to the same period last year, to UAH 1.435 billion.
In January-March the operator provided fixed-line telephony services worth UAH 747.3 million, while by the end of the quarter it serviced 4.5 million active telephone lines.
Revenues from providing broadband Internet services for this period rose by 4.1%, to UAH 455 million. At the same time, the operator serves 1.445 million subscribers in more than 2,200 settlements.
By the end of the first quarter, Ukrtelecom serviced 3.6 million fixed-line subscribers, 1.3 million subscribers to Internet access services, and 93,000 TV subscribers in the B2C segment. Revenues in this segment from telephony decreased by 6.8%, to UAH 562 million, revenues from providing access to the Internet grew by 0.6%, to UAH 322 million.
Norway has provided EUR 3.6 million (NOK 34 million) for the implementation of projects of the Council of Europe for Ukraine, Norwegian Ambassador to Ukraine and Belarus Ole Terje Horpestad has said.
“Norway has decided to further support the four-year action plan with EUR 3.6 million… I also want to emphasize that we expect that Ukraine will continue full and deep cooperation with the Council of Europe and will fulfill its obligations. The action plan is important for international confidence and support for further reforms in Ukraine,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday.
In turn, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine Morten Enberg said that the funds would allow continuing the implementation of the Council of Europe support, in particular, to the judicial reform, the execution of court rulings, decentralization, corruption fighting and support of internally displaced persons (IDPs).
Enberg said that this is the assistance to the Ukrainian government in support of national minorities and the implementation of the action plan under the new law on education.
He said that the total amount for the implementation of the action plan is around EUR 29 million for four years.
