Photo by Zane Bitere
The publication's sources refused to disclose the companies' names.
Ten Ukrainian IT companies' accounts at Latvia-based PNB Banka, which was declared insolvent on September 12, have been blocked on charges of money laundering, according to Ukraine's Novoye Vremya (NV) weekly.
"An extract of the letter written by the affected companies to [Ukrainian] Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Dmytro Kuleba became available for the publication," the Ukrainian Ekonomichna Pravda news outlet wrote on December 17, referring to NV.
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According to the publication, the affected companies' representatives met with Kuleba to discuss the issue. In particular, the letter says the companies could not receive even EUR 100,000 in guaranteed compensation over their frozen accounts.
"We are concerned about a practice of handling guaranteed payments to Ukrainian, mainly IT companies, which were clients of Latvia's PNB Banka. While preparing documents required to get EUR 100,000 in guaranteed payment, they received a message from Latvia's financial intelligence unit that their accounts had been blocked as the companies had been charged with money laundering and financing of terrorism," the letter said.
"Such letters of accusation were received by companies that had had bank accounts for at least five years and always passed customer due diligence checks without raising any suspicion from the bank's financial monitoring service. The problems began only after they had filed documents for reimbursement. This refers mainly to well-known IT companies that have been operating transparently for many years both in Ukraine and abroad," the letter said.
The companies emphasize "such a problem is systemic in nature and is not an isolated case."
"Ukrainian companies have become hostages to the situation, having lost bank deposits. What is more, they have to fight for their own money, spending tens of thousands of euros on Latvian lawyers who cannot 100% guarantee the settlement of the issue. Unfortunately, such an attitude towards Ukrainian counterparties could become a serious obstacle to future relations between Ukrainian investors/companies and Latvia," the letter said.
Lawyers representing the affected companies' interests said the procedure for obtaining a guaranteed amount is not complicated: one just needs to provide a required package of documents, and funds worth up to EUR 100,000 will be transferred to the account indicated by a client. If a client's account has more than EUR 100,000, the excess amount is recovered under the procedure regulating the repayment of creditors' claims.
"From the very beginning of the guaranteed payment procedure, [the Ukrainian] clients began to encounter problems. It was absurd when a client submitted the required documents via existing representative offices, and after a while, he was notified that the representative office's power of representation had either been revoked or its validity had expired. That is, they accepted the documents, but they had no power to do this," one of the lawyers said on condition of anonymity.
The publication's sources categorically refused to disclose the companies' names.