Managing Partner and co-owner of ICU Kostiantyn Stetsenko has said there were no violation in actions of the group when deals to sell and purchase government domestic loan bonds were signed in 2014, when ICU acted as a broker of the Agrarian Fund, and that the recent statement of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko looks like an attempt to put pressure on ICU and his person as well.

"To my regret, everything that is going on seems to be a trivial attempt to put pressure on me and on the ICU Group. Given the multiple procedural omissions made by the PGO, I intend to respond to their actions in the manner prescribed by law," reads a statement of Stetsenko posted on the ICU website.

Besides, he said that he and ICU acted in accordance with the law in these transactions.

"In response to recent statement of Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) and any allegations regarding ICU's and/or my roles in certain transactions in 2014 where ICU acted as a broker for PJSC Agrarian Fund in 2014, I, Kostiantyn Stetsenko, feel compelled to emphasize once again that both ICU and I have acted fully in accordance with the law in all the transactions in question. In particular, ICU as a broker acted on behalf and upon instructions of its client. Our company had reasonable grounds to believe the transactions were legal and valid from the standpoint of Ukrainian law. We duly performed our obligations as the broker," the ICU managing partner said.

According to him, PGO is well aware that the courts found ICU had acted in accordance with the law in these transactions.

"The events surrounding the said transactions have been investigated by relevant courts and the independent stock market regulator. ICU cooperated fully in these investigations by providing all the information it held in its records and by taking part in the court hearings. The relevant court decisions are publicly available (see below) and the PGO was a party to these proceedings," Stetsenko said.

"The statement that I was ever a deputy to [NBU ex-governor Valeriya] Gontareva is false, as are the allegations that Oleksiy Filatov [ex-Deputy Head of Presidential Administration] was a lawyer in these transactions," he said.

Recently, Lutsenko has said Gontareva, Oleksiy Filatov and Stetsenko have been summoned to the PGO to be served notices of suspicion in the case on the embezzlement of UAH 150 million during a deal of the Agrarian Fund and one of the banks.

"In the case, ICU was involved in a transaction between the Agrarian Fund and one of the banks, as a result of which the funds in the amount of UAH 150 million were actually stolen. The head of the prosecutor's group, Serhiy Kiz, sees the sufficiency of the evidence collected," the prosecutor general said in a video commentary published on YouTube channel of the PGO.

"Suspicion is served to the person who directly put his signature on the documents. These are Stetsenko as the deputy of the ICU group, Gontareva as the head of the ICU and Filatov, who served this deal," Lutsenko said, noting that these three citizens were called to the investigator for being served notices of suspicion.

"If they do not come, notices of suspicion will be sent the other way – through the mail to the address of residence," he added.