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Kyiv's Pechersky District Court has arrested assets in accounts of Trafigura Ukraine LLC, a subsidiary of world's major energy trader Trafigura, in the State Treasury and Alfa-Bank as part of a pre-trial investigation of the Prosecutor General's Office into theft of budget funds by state-owned Ukrspyrt in the process of natural gas purchases, that’s according to a court ruling of September 19, 2017, published in the Unified State Register of Judicial Decisions.
Having satisfied a PGO motion, the court also seized accounts of another 20 companies, including Skela Tercium LLC, Smart Energy LLC, and Craft Energy LLC.
"According to the case file, officials of the state-run enterprise Ukrspyrt, Skela Tercium LLC, and unidentified individuals conspired to create a criminal group in 2016-2017... and illegally enriched themselves through tenders for natural gas purchases for Ukrspyrt," reads the court ruling.
As earlier reported, Trafigura opened its representative office in Kyiv in May and since then, the company has participated in natural gas e-trading at the Ukrainian Energy Exchange. It also launched the Ukrainian version of its website. In April, Trafigura won the Ukrtransgaz's tender for the supply of 218 million cubic meters of gas for the technological needs of the Ukrainian gas transport system.
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Trafigura is the world's third commodity trader after Vitol and Glencore, specializing in the trading of metals, gas, oil, and mineral fertilizers. Its revenue totaled $98.1 billion in 2016. The company has 65 offices in 36 countries.
Ukrspyrt is a monopoly on the Ukrainian market of alcoholic beverages. Demonopolization of the alcohol industry is one of the requirements of Ukraine's key creditor, the International Monetary Fund.
Ukrspyrt, which is worth an estimated $200-400 million, remains on the list of enterprises banned from privatization.
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