KYIV. July 12 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Agro-Wild Ukraine with German investment has said that the corporate rights to one of its subsidiaries were illegally seized by the former director, Berthold Karl Alois Wild, the investor and director general of the company, said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

In October 2018, Wild became aware of the seizure of the corporate rights to Viktoria LLC, in which he was an investor. Land lease agreements for a total area of 1,650 hectares were registered for this company. According to Wild, the rights were seized by the ex-director of Viktoria.

Wild returned the land lease rights and sowed the parcel with the permission of the prosecutor's office in spring 2019, but his opponents rewrote the lease agreements to another company and are now claiming to harvest 1,000 hectares.

"During the entire sowing season, the police were present, but our opponent says he had planted. We will harvest anyway, and if necessary, we will hire private guards," Wild said.

According to him, in both cases (the seizure of the corporate rights and rewriting of land parcels to a new company), the registrar made changes to the registry using forged documents. The investor appealed to the anti-raider commission of the Ministry of Justice in Cherkasy. The former director of Viktoria and the new owner of land lease rights were notified that they are suspected of committing a crime.

Wild told Interfax-Ukraine that his opponents are now claiming to harvest 1,000 hectares of crop. However, in his opinion, they will also declare their rights to harvest the remaining 650 hectares.

Hermann Intemann, adviser on agrarian issues at the German Embassy in Ukraine, said that Wild is not the first German investor who addressed land issues to the embassy and added that the embassy is concerned about the situation in Ukraine on this issue.

Wild has been working in Ukraine for 18 years, cultivating land in Kyiv and Cherkasy regions. He also owns a sugar factory.