12:59 03.05.2019

Surkis brothers to sue Poroshenko in England – Kolomoisky

2 min read
Surkis brothers to sue Poroshenko in England – Kolomoisky

Brothers Hryhoriy and Ihor Surkis are preparing a lawsuit with the English court against President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko because of the allegedly failed sale to Poroshenko of about 25% of 1+1 TV channel shares owned by the brothers, the channel's co-owner Ihor Kolomoisky has said.

"Poroshenko negotiated with the Surkis brothers. This will be the subject of a claim to Poroshenko as soon as he ceases to be president. This is what I know for sure: a lawsuit is being prepared for him in England ... From the Surkises," he said in an interview with Bihus.Info.

According to the businessman, in February 2016, Poroshenko "made a deal with the Surkises." "Negotiations have been underway for some time since February between the Surkises and Poroshenko' representatives. The lawyers were already involved. He wanted to buy 25% from them and then negotiate with me so that I could sell him another 25% and consequently have 50% of the channel's shares," Kolomoisky said.

According to him, at that time there was already a search for funding the transaction, which Kolomoisky estimated at $ 240-250 million.

Earlier, Kolomoisky said that Poroshenko had refused the deal to buy a stake in the said channel from the Surkis brothers, as then head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Valeria Hontareva allegedly convinced the president that control of the channel could be obtained by nationalizing PrivatBank.

The businessman added that at present he and Ihor Surkis have approximately 25% of 1+1 shares, another 7.5% of shares belong to the management and journalists, who, after nationalizing PrivatBank, decided to exercise their stock option plans.

"They had options. When the nationalization took place, they decided to exercise these stock option plans so that no one else could get the shares," said Kolomoisky.

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