Martynenko demands removal of public references regarding his corruption cases from AntAC

Former MP from the Narodnyi Front party Mykola Martynenko, indicted by NABU of money laundering, filed the lawsuit against the Anti-Corruption Action Center. He demands to remove references regarding his participation in corrupt activities from the website of one of organization’s projects.

This is about Martynenko’s dossier, which is placed in Public Register of Domestic Politically Exposed Persons of Ukraine – database developed by the NGO. It helps banks to identify politically exposed persons among their clients. It has over 30,000 documented records about Ukrainian politicians, prosecutors, judges, law-enforcement officers and their relatives.

In his lawsuit Martynenko accuses AntAC of allegedly illegally using his name in description of criminal offenses and corruption cases where his guilt or participation is not established by the court.

In the lawsuit, politician cites quotes from the plot of court decisions about his connections with offshore companies, with the help of which financial transactions were conducted. The NABU detectives established it. In the opinion of former MP, this defames his business reputation. Therefore, in the lawsuit he demands to remove his dossier from the Public Register of Domestic Politically Exposed Persons of Ukraine and to prohibit the AntAC to publish information about criminal proceedings or information about corporate rights with reference to his name.

AntAC lawyers explain that Martynenko does not have grounds to be offended to his own dossier, published in the Public Register of Domestic Politically Exposed Persons. Collected information is either confirmed by documents, namely by court decisions or excerpts from the state registers, or is already known to public from numerous journalists’ investigations and his own comments. Moreover, his case is already being heard in the court.

“If business reputation of Martynenko is damaged, this happened not because we wrote about him in the Register of PEPs, where we check every fact. It happened because of political corruption and bribery, established by NABU, which resulted in the state loses of almost 700 million UAH”, lawyer and executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center Daria Kalenyuk commented the lawsuit of former MP.

AntAC attorney Olena Shcherban explains that Martynenko is a public politician in Ukraine, as well as a national politically exposed person according to the law on counteraction of money laundering. Therefore, he is a subject of thorough public control and he could be sharply criticized by the media and public. Therefore, in attorney’s opinion, Martynenko has no grounds to file the lawsuit against those who highlight his activities as politician and MP.

The case will be considered in Pechersk court of Kyiv by judge Bortnytska V.V. The first hearing will be held on October 29 at 2:00 p.m. The preparatory hearing was held on July 30, 2018.

Mykola Martynenko sent the lawsuit to Pechersk District Court of Kyiv against the NGO Anti-Corruption Action Center regarding protection of non-property rights to use the name and inviolability of business reputation in June 2018.

On May 22, the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office forwarded the case of former MP from the Narodnyi Front party Mykola Martynenko to the court. Martynenko is suspected of acquiring property of the state enterprise NNEGC Energoatom.

Pereloma, R. Zhurylo, O. Sorokina, V. Bogdanets and V. Vasylkov are accused in the case, besides Martynenko.

Martynenko and Vasylkov are charged of acquiring funds of SE NNEGC Energoatom at conclusion and execution of contracts for supply of equipment for the mentioned company from Czech company SKODA JS and conclusion and execution of contract between SKODA JS and BRADCREST INVESTMENTS SA for the total amount of 6,4 million EUR.

Moreover, Martynenko, Pereloma, Zhurylo, Sorokin and Bogdanets are accused of seizing 17,28 million USD of state enterprise Eastern Mining and Processing Plant.

On May 21, Martynenko received an indictment.

On April 20, 2017, former MP Mykola Martynenko was detained regarding the case of embezzlement of 17 million USD. On April 22, the court refused to arrest Martynenko and released him on bail to Members of Parliament and ministers.

 

Reference:

Pep.org.ua – the project of the Anti-Corruption Action Center – is the unified Public Register of Domestic Politically Exposed Persons. The Register contains over 30,000 bilingual dossiers and information about Ukrainian officials, their relatives, business partners and related companies. The Register was launched in early 2016. It is administered by non-governmental organization and is funded by the European Union’s Project Enhancing the role of civil society in public finance oversight.

Its goal is to help Ukrainian and foreign financial institutions to identify Ukrainian Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) among their clients. Such persons are considered to be clients of heightened risk, and bank must check carefully their financial transactions.

The Register is recommended as the source for verifying information about PEP by the State Financial Monitoring Service and the National Bank of Ukraine. It is official data provider about PEP-Ukrainians for World-Check Thomson Reuters.

Every day the Register is visited by 3,000 users. Data from the Register has been transferred for free to more than 40 entities of initial financial monitoring, including state institutions in Ukraine and abroad, Ukrainian and international banks, insurance companies, etc.