SCM has said that the ultimate beneficiary of EPIC that bought Ukrtelecom at a privatization tender via ESU LLC in 2011 was businessman Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, then head of Ukraine's SBU State Security Service.

"Testimony given by Peter Goldscheider as managing partner of EPIC Group and Robert Shetler-Jones, deputy board chairman of the supervisory board of Group DF uniting assets of Dmytro Firtash, say Khoroshkovsky was the ultimate beneficiary of EPIC [later Raga] at the moment of the privatization, and he was behind this company. It is strange that SCM Financial should prove something with this testimony by Raga," Director of International and Investor Relations at SCM Jock Mendoza-Wilson said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He said that it would be right if Raga/EPIC explains the circumstances of the participation of a person, who was SBU chief at the moment Ukrtelecom was privatized with the participation of his partner Dmytro Firtash.

Mendoza-Wilson also paid attention to some inconsistencies in the financial part of the deal.

"Let's look deeper. The price of the privatization of Ukrtelecom in 2011 was around $1.3 billion. Witnesses from Raga during the arbitration and Denys Horbunenko in his recent interviews claim that $300 million of the sum were borrowed by EPIC and Khoroshkovsky from Firtash and his company Picabo. The question is who gave the rest of $1 billion to privatize Ukrtelecom? It is unlikely that someone would believe EPIC and Goldscheider had extra cash in this amount for the privatization of an asset in Ukraine," he said.

Mendoza-Wilson said that EPIC was Austria's family consulting and investment company with small assets in property and telecommunications in Eastern Europe. He also said that it is difficult for him to believe that Goldscheider could raise $1.3 billion from western investors to buy Ukrtelecom.