The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine has launched the operation of the Business Protection Office (BPO) under the ministry, the head of which was appointed adviser to Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, ex-Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko.
“Today we are launching an additional operational protection mechanism – we are opening an advisory body – the Business Protection Office under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, where every entrepreneur and investor will be able to receive the necessary assistance and effectively protect their rights. Our global goal is to make the business environment in Ukraine as much as possible protected and attractive for investors both Ukrainian and foreign,” the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported on Thursday evening.
The specific areas of work of the Business Protection Office will be combating raiding, combating corruption and abuse of business in the structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, unshadowing the tobacco, alcohol and fuel market, helping the State Customs Service and other law enforcement agencies in the fight against smuggling, the issue of combating counterfeit products, violation of copyright and trademark counterfeiting.
Other issues of violation of the rights of entrepreneurs by law enforcement officers in the structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs – the National Police, the State Emergency Service, and the State Migration Service – will also be in the field of vision and response of the Business Protection Office.
The Northern Mining and Processing Plant (Northern GOK, Kryvy Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region), which is the part of the Metinvest Group, will invest UAH 2.3 billion in environmental protection measures in 2020.
Metinvest Kryvyi Rih said on Facebook on Thursday, August 20, that Northern GOK continues seeking effective ways of environmental protection.
“This time peat hydroxide reagent was successfully tested during the blasting operations in the mine. Earlier, spraying of the reagent in the Hannivsky mine helped to reduce dusting by 30% and gas emission by 70%,” it said.
As reported, Metinvest plans to invest UAH 3.1 billion in the modernization and overhauls of equipment and construction of strategic facilities at Northern GOK in 2020.
Northern GOK is a part of the Metinvest Group, the main shareholders of which are JSC System Capital Management (SCM, Donetsk) (71.24%) and Smart Holding group of companies (23.76%).
The holding company of the Metinvest Group is Metinvest Holding LLC.
Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has passed at first reading bill No. 1056-1 on protection of ownership rights, ceasing activities of accredited entities in the sphere of public registration of ownership rights. As an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported, bill No. 1056-1 at the plenary meeting on September 12 was supported by 327 MPs.
“The bill is aimed at providing additional guarantees for the protection of ownership rights in Ukraine, and provides for the removal from the market of the so-called accredited entities – nongovernmental organizations that regularly, unfortunately, performed the functions of “black registrars” and were one of the elements of criminal schemes,” one of the initiators of the bill, MP Olena Shuliak (the Servant of the People parliamentary faction) said.
The document also introduces the principle of simultaneous notarization of a legal act and public registration of emerging rights, and obliges to notarize certificates on disposing corporate rights.
In addition, the bill provides for increased liability for violations of registration procedures.