Смарт Холдинг

Statement on PGO's Actions Against Officials of Smart Maritime Group

27.09.2017

The Prosecutor General's Office continues its consistent pressure on the business of Smart-Holding and its beneficiary, an opposition politician Vadym Novynskyi. This is how today’s announcement of suspicion to Vasiliy Fedin, the general director of Smart Maritime Group Shipbuilding Company, is interpreted in Smart-Holding. He is accused of allegedly entering some false information into an official document more than five years ago.

The actions of investigators from the prosecutor's office in relation to the general manager of one of the successfully operating shipbuilding companies of Ukraine and the people's deputy in Kherson regional council from the Opposition Bloc party were based on an appeal to the Prosecutor General's Office submitted by People's Deputy, a member of Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction Aleksey Vadaturskiy, who has his own interests in the shipbuilding sector, the same as the leader of the named party. We do not exclude that the events unfolding today around the shipbuilding assets are in fact not only the implementation of political tasks, but also a business order aimed at eliminating or absorbing a strong competitor in the shipbuilding market of Ukraine, in particular with the aim to subsequently obtain an exclusive access to defense budgets.

We repeatedly stated that over the past few years, all actions of the PGO in relation to the holding company and its businesses were clearly biased.

It is also quite illustrative that suspicion was announced to Vasiliy Fedin less than a week after his critical speech at the meeting of the parliamentary committee on industrial policy. Let us recall that at that meeting he criticized the authorities for the complete lack of vision and strategy for the development of the shipbuilding industry and the industrial potential of the country in general. It seems that people in power react very painfully even to constructive criticism. On the one hand, its representatives, speaking officially from high rostrums, voice their calls to invest in Ukraine, while on the other hand, the government turns a blind eye, and sometimes even encourages pressure on business. In addition, the Prosecutor General's Office has become the main instrument of such pressure today. By hands of law enforcement authorities they in fact launch re-privatization processes in the country in the interests of representatives of the current government.

Today Smart Maritime Group, despite the crisis in the world shipbuilding sector, is one of the leaders of the shipbuilding industry in Ukraine. A stable order portfolio has been ensured at the shipyards providing jobs for many thousands of employees. For 2016 alone, the amount of taxes and fees paid by the company totalled UAH 74 million. We are confident in our legal position and are ready to protect it in the courts.