The Eskulab laboratory chain is fulfilling its obligations, but the conflict between the owners has jeopardized the network’s development plans, said Natalia Kohut, Eskulab’s medical director.
“We fulfill 100% of the obligations we undertook in 2024 in terms of conducting trials. But the issue of interaction between the co-founders of the company, unfortunately, has suspended the dynamic growth of the network,” she said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.
Kohut said that the company planned to open 25 branches in Kyiv and Lviv region in 2024 and start expanding to the central and eastern regions of Ukraine.
“We did have such opportunities. We have already opened three laboratories outside of Lviv and Kyiv, but unfortunately, we do not have this opportunity now,” she said.
Natalia Kohut also noted that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the network has been accredited for the quality of its management system. At the same time, Eskulab provides laboratory services to more than 5,000 patients every day.
“We are conducting honest business activities, we have no financial abuses in relation to the obligations we have assumed,” she said.
For his part, Andriy Dubivka, CFO of Eskulab, noted that the possible losses of the network due to the conflict between the co-founders could be estimated at hundreds of millions of hryvnias, if not a billion.
“We are currently calculating the losses. We pay official dividends according to the reporting forms. We have set ourselves the task of making the company transparent and clean,” he said.
Andriy Dubivka clarified that at the meeting held last week, the co-founders of Eskulab did not agree on the formation of the company’s governing body, so the Management Board established by the decision of the meeting in October 2023 remains the legitimate body.
“At the meeting, the participants did not reach any agreement, as Sergiy Dyadyushko’s position was clear: the said management board is able to continue to fulfill its powers,” he said.
For his part, co-founder of the Eskulab network Serhiy Dyadyushko noted that the conflict between the co-founders arose in 2023, when co-founders Stanislav Lugovskyi and Denys Melnyk attempted to re-register Serhiy Dyadyushko’s share and remove him from the network. In addition, according to Serhiy Dyadyushko, his business partners did not support the activities of the charitable foundation Aesculab, which he had created, which, among other things, provides food, medicines and medical devices to the military.
“According to the version of the company’s charter adopted in October 2023, each of the company’s participants has a representative in the board, so there is one representative on my side and two on the side of my opponents,” he said.
As reported earlier, the Eskulab Group, which operates the Eskulab medical laboratory network (PE First Social Medical Laboratory (FSML) Eskulab and Eskulab Center LLC), announced the risks of stopping the network’s operation due to raider seizure attempts by its two co-founders Stanislav Luhovskyi and Denys Melnyk, who carried out a raider seizure and blocked Eskulab’s financial operations through their representatives in the management. In this regard, Diadiushko appealed to law enforcement agencies.
In his turn, Denys Melnyk said in a comment to Interfax-Ukraine that he and Stanislav Luhovskyi “are being removed from any management or influence on the company,” their access to their jobs has been blocked for several months, and Diadiushko “deliberately conceals the state of affairs in the financial and economic part.”
At the same time, Dyadyushko’s representative, lawyer Yuriy Petrovsky, said that the company’s shareholders are not deprived of the right to manage the company, as confirmed by the general meeting of the company’s shareholders convened by Lugovsky on April 12. At the same time, according to Melnyk, another meeting of Aesculab’s shareholders is scheduled for April 19, 2024.
He said, “as for the operational management of the company’s production processes, two participants carry out such management through their delegated representatives of the management: commercial director Roman Vysotsky and financial director Andriy Dubivka. Currently, it is Vysotskyi who is blocking the company’s operational activities.”…
Eskulab Medical Laboratory is one of the three largest private laboratories in Ukraine, contracted by the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU). The network consists of five laboratory centers and 180 sample collection points in the western regions of Ukraine and Kyiv.
In 2023, Eskulab paid UAH 33.8 million in taxes, including UAH 14.97 million in unified social tax, UAH 1.33 million in military duty, and UAH 14.034 million in personal income tax. It is one of the ten largest taxpayers in Lviv region.
The co-founders of PE “PSML “Eskulab” are Dyadyushko, who owns 43% of the company, Luhovskyi (43%) and Melnyk (14%). The co-founders of Eskulab Center LLC are Dyadyushko, Luhovskyi and Melnyk, who each own 20% of the company, and Ruslana Soltani, who owns 40%.
Aesculab, CONFLICT, Kohut, Petrovsky, RAIDING, Дубівка, Дядюшко
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said that during his visit to Kiev he “focused on the problems of the war and the ways of its peaceful settlement.”
“Saudi Arabia would like to do everything possible to reduce the severity of hostilities. Any war ends at the negotiating table, but it should be under the auspices of the UN and with respect for international law,” he said Sunday at a briefing in Kiev.
The minister said that “President Zelensky’s peace initiatives should be at the core of the peace settlement.”
According to him, the sides “discussed Saudi Arabia’s mediation for the release of prisoners of war.” “It was a victory for Saudi Arabia, we hope to continue these efforts,” he said of the fall 2022 exchange of prisoners of war between Ukraine and Russia mediated by Saudi Arabia.
According to the minister, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he gave him a greeting from the king of Saudi Arabia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outspeaks against the freezing of the conflict with Russia.
Speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit Tuesday night, he said, referring to a possible cease-fire, that “it doesn’t mean Russian troops will stand where they are now. It’s a frozen conflict. We’re not going to agree to a frozen conflict.”
He called the Minsk agreements the kind that led to the frozen conflict. “I am against it, there will be no such document. We did not withdraw from Minsk, Russia withdrew from it on February 24. They did, and Ukraine will definitely not go into such a swamp again.”
At the same time, according to Zelensky, he does not see the desire of the Russian Federation to achieve a ceasefire. “If we have a meeting with President Putin, then maybe we can agree with him personally. He should commit to a ceasefire, preferably public, then we can believe in it,” the president said.
He also said that “we must first take the appropriate steps to stop the war, and then diplomacy will come into play.” “It is desirable to do the first stage and we have done that – to stop Russia in its advance. The second stage is to do as much as possible so that Russia withdraws from our territory. Now we are in the second stage. The third stage is to restore as much territorial integrity as possible,” he said.
In his opinion, “where it is possible to restore territorial integrity, to find some compromises through dialogue in words, not through dialogue of weapons, Ukraine will do it, but showing its position as an equal partner in any dialogue”.
Zelensky noted that “our groups are communicating at the level of negotiators,” but “I do not really believe in such agreements.” “It’s important to talk, but until the president of the Russian Federation personally says it officially, and I don’t see the weight in such agreements,” Zelensky said.
The recovery of international tourism after the coronavirus pandemic may slow down due to the conflict in Ukraine, experts from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) say.
“The main tourist supplying countries, the US and Asian countries, which have now begun to open for departure, are sensitive to possible risks. In addition, the closure of Ukrainian and Russian airspace, as well as the ban on flights for Russian carriers, affects travel within Europe. The need to overfly closed areas for long-haul flights leads to an increase in flight time and an increase in flight costs.
According to the UNWTO, Russia and Ukraine accounted for 3% of global travel spending in 2020.
If the conflict drags on, global tourism could lose at least $14 billion in revenue.
“Both markets are significant suppliers of tourists for neighboring countries, European beach destinations. The Russian market has also become very important during the pandemic for tourist destinations such as the Maldives, Seychelles or Sri Lanka,” the organization emphasizes.
At the same time, UNWTO experts note that it is too early to assess all the consequences of the war. Searches and bookings for flights through various channels fell just after February 24, but in early March, the figures began to recover.
“The situation of uncertainty worsens economic conditions, undermines consumer confidence, increases investment uncertainty. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), global economic growth this year could be 1% lower than forecast, and inflation could jump by 2 .5%. The rising price of oil also increases the cost of transportation services and hotel accommodation, which reduces the purchasing power of potential tourists,” the UNWTO emphasizes.
China asks Ukraine to properly resolve the conflict issue surrounding the purchase of Motor Sich shares by Chinese investors, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a briefing, answering a question from the RIA Novosti Russian state agency about the reaction to possible nationalization enterprises by decree of the President of Ukraine.
“China asks the Ukrainian side to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises and investors in accordance with the law and properly resolve the relevant issues,” Chunying said in a transcript of the March 25 briefing on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website.
The spokesperson said that the Foreign Ministry was informed about the relevant documents on Motor Sich.
DFU Agro LLC (Hrozyne, Zhytomyr region, belongs to Danish Berry Farm) has claimed a possible loss of $100,000-300,000 if the company loses its harvest over the land conflict with Gorodok-Agro LLC (Malyn, Zhytomyr region), DFU Agro Director Vadym Shestakov said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday. According to him, the company since 2014 has been processing 1,200 hectares of land in Zhytomyr region on the basis of an agreement with the village councils on the management of the heritage. In November 2018, Gorodok-Agro rented several parcels of land, including 250 hectares, which remained in the use of DFU Agro (until 2018, this was impossible due to legislation). DFU Agro sowed this land with winter rape and rye before it was rented to Gorodok-Agro in August-September-2018. Now Gorodok-Agro claims to harvests from this area.
“We offered the company a similar area (250 hectares) of cultivated land, but they, using an ultimatum, suggested that we sell the rest of our land in these territories. In May 2019, we appealed to the anti-raider committee. In June, most of the committee members expressed the opinion that Gorodok-Agro has no right to harvest, but has the right to compensation,” the director of DFU Agro said.
He said that DFU Agro agrees with the compensation, but it has not yet been possible to agree on the terms of compensation.
“Our losses, if the opponent takes our harvest, will amount to $100,000-300,000. We are ready to harvest the crop and transfer it to a third party for safekeeping,” Shestakov said.
DFU Agro LLC is controlled by the Danish company Berry Farm, which is the owner of Dan-Farm Ukraine LLC (Khalcha, Kyiv region), one of the largest pig breeding enterprises in Ukraine. The charter capital of DFU Agro is UAH 63.7 million.
