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The relevant decision was made on February 26.
Kyiv's Pivnicnyi Economic Court of Appeals has turned down an appeal filed by the State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine and upheld a decision of Kyiv's Economic Court, which refused to satisfy the SPF's lawsuit against Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov's ESU company for cancelling the deal to sell a 92.79% stake in Ukraine's telecoms giant Ukrtelecom and recovering US$81.9 million in penalty for late payment of the investment obligation.
Read alsoState Property Fund appeals court ruling not to return Ukrtelecom to state ownership
The appeals court took the relevant decision on February 26, according to the register of judicial decisions.
"The decision of the court of appeals comes into force from the date of its adoption and can be appealed within ten days from the date of drafting its full text in accordance with Articles 287 and 288 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine," reads the ruling.
As UNIAN reported earlier, Kyiv's Economic Court in November 2018 refused to satisfy the lawsuit lodged by the State Property Fund against Akhmetov's ESU company for termination of the contract for the sale of a 92.79% stake in Ukraine's telecoms giant Ukrtelecom and the recovery of US$81.9 million in penalty for late payment of the investment obligation.
ESU LLC (owned by the Austrian company EPIC, now Raga Establishment) in 2011 bought Ukrtelecom from the state, having paid UAH 10.57 billion for 92.79% of the telecoms company's shares, which were then sold to Akhmetov's System Capital Management (SCM) holding in 2013.
In May 2017, the SPF appealed against ESU in court, demanding the cancelation of the sale of Ukrtelecom's shares in connection with the buyer's failure to fulfill investment obligations estimated at US$450 million.
On October 19, 2017, Kyiv's Economic Court considered a lawsuit lodged by the State Property Fund and revoked the contract concluded in March 2011 following a privatization tender to sell Ukrtelecom shares to ESU, thus returning Ukrtelecom to state ownership.
On December 12, 2017, the Court of Appeals refused to satisfy ESU's lawsuit challenging the decision by the court of previous instance, according to which Ukrtelecom was to be returned to state ownership.
In July 2018, the Supreme Court of Ukraine considered an appeal by Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov's ESU company against the court rulings terminating the deal to privatize 92.8% of shares of Ukraine's telecoms giant Ukrtelecom and returned the case for retrial by a court of first instance.
Kyiv's Economic Court on November 7, 2018, did not satisfy the lawsuit lodged by the State Property Fund against ESU to terminate the contract for the sale of Ukrtelecom and recover US$81.9 million in penalty for late payment of the investment obligation.
On November 9, 2018, Kyiv's District Administrative Court found the results of checks on compliance with the terms of the contract for the Ukrtelecom sale at a March 11, 2011 tender to be unlawful.
UNIAN memo. Ukrtelecom is Ukraine's largest landline service provider. The company's controlling stake belongs to Rinat Akhmetov's SCM Group.