On 23 May, the Holosiyivskiy district court of Kyiv and, on 24 May, the Kirovskiy district court of Dnipropetrovsk, will examine the suits of minority shareholders of “Dnipropetrovsk Oil-Extracting Plant” close corporation (TM “Oleyna”). Should these suits be allowed, the control share holding will return to the plant’s labor collective. UNIAN was informed on this by lawyer Serhiy Paliy, representative of several minority shareholders.
According to his information, a group of minority shareholders of the company submitted a suit to the Kirovskiy district court of Dnipropetrovsk, demanding to declare invalid the decision of the company’s shareholders general meeting, which was held on 23 June 1994, in the part dealing with increasing the company’s statutory fund and additional issuing nominal shares, connected with the sale of the additionally issued shares to “Ilta Holding C.A.” company (Switzerland), and making this non-resident company one of the company’s founders.
Another suit was submitted by minority shareholders to the Holosiyivskiy district court of Kyiv. It deals with declaring invalid the decision of the general meeting of shareholders of “Dnipropetrovsk Oil-Extracting Plant” close corporation with foreign investments, which took place on 22 March 2000, in the part which reduced the company’s statutory fund by 907 thousand 750 hryvnias, with nullifying 7 thousand 262 privileged shares.
The lawyer noted that the main argument of the defendant is the time limitation, though the defendant does not deny that the legislation was violated. However, considering the fact that the shareholders, in the person of the labor collective, were not given any opportunity to use their rights, this argument cannot be taken into account, S.Paliy said to UNIAN.
He recalled that presently the control share holding (more than 90%) belongs to Bunge Ltd corporation (USA), while the shareholding of the labor collective makes nearly 3%.
UNIAN reference. In 1993, with the decision of the labor collective, the Dnipropetrovsk oil-extracting plant was turned into close corporation, in which 100% of shares belong to the labor collective.
In 1994 a foreign investor – “Ilta Holding C.A.” (Switzerland) joined the company. Under an investment at 1 million dollars, an additional series of shares was issued, and completely transferred to the foreign investor.
As a result, a shareholding at 85%, and, correspondingly, the total control over the plant, was given to “Ilta Holding C.A.”, which was later renamed into “Oleyna Holding C.A.”.
In 1995, when the plant was resold to French “Sereol”, it was assessed at nearly 80 million dollars.
Later, American corporation Bunge Ltd. gained a control over the plant. It is one of the biggest transnational companies in the sphere of the agricultural business, with offices in more than 32 countries.
“Dnipropetrovsk Oil-Extracting Plant” close corporation is one of the Ukraine’s biggest oil-extracting enterprises (its processing capacities amount to 400 thousand tons of sunflower seeds annually).
