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Turkey's Mesa-Dorbud attempting to return own equipment after illegal seizure

KYIV. Sept 1 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Turkey-based Mesa-Dorbud has asked the Ukrainian authorities to monitor the case of returning the company's assets to its legal property.

"If these were ordinary fraudsters, our law enforcement agencies could easily finish this case. But there are moments associated with the courts that hear the case and make decisions that contradict [common sense]. The court that abolished the freeze [of equipment] in motivational section of its award recognized that the construction of roads is more important than the preservation of the legal entity's ownership to this equipment. We are trying to appeal against this decision," Deputy Director of Mesa-DorBud LLC Vitaliy Troshyn said at a briefing at the press center of Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.

He said that the owners of the Turkish company have never made a decision to sell equipment and they have not signed the fake decision of the founders.

According to lawyers, since the opening of criminal proceedings in January 2020, the Turkish company has been attempting to preserve its property and prohibit its use as material evidence, but the courts have repeatedly refused to make such decisions.

Mesa-Dorbud estimates the investment in the equipment lost during the illegal seizure at EUR 6 million.

"In July 2019, due to the lack of work, it was decided by the owners to lease the equipment to Kommuntrans. When drawing up the lease agreement, Kommuntrans offered to sign a contract with its contractor, Farmer, which did not know about the existence of this agreement. The next day after the transfer of the equipment, powers of attorney were issued authoring to sell equipment on behalf of our director, who at that time was in Turkey. Under counterfeit powers of attorney, the equipment was sold to a shell company, and then it was registered to Komuntrans, which also tried to resell this equipment," Troshyn said.

He also said that as soon as they managed to secure the freeze of the equipment, MP Vitaliy Bort (Opposition Platform - For Life), who announced that Kommuntrans was his company, offered Mesa-Dorbud a peaceful out-of-court solution to the problem, which Kommuntrans quitted as soon as the freeze on the equipment was lifted.

According to the company, all 30 units of Mesa-Dorbud's equipment are currently performing construction work under the contract of Kommuntrans in the territory of Kurakhove district of Donetsk region.

A representative of the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey in Ukraine expressed hope for an early resolution of the current situation, stressing that solving the problems of investors is the best guarantee of new investments in the country.

In turn, Troshyn said that the parent company Ersa, despite the current situation, is still ready to continue investing in Ukraine.

"One of the owners of the company is also the owner of the Turkish company Ersa, which is ready to invest about $1.5 billion in significant infrastructure projects through the Mesa-Dorbud company under the auspices of the President of Ukraine, about which there are letters of guarantee," he said during the briefing.

As reported, in June 2020, Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov created a working group and discussed with the Turkish Ambassador to Ukraine the issue of the illegal seizure of construction company Mesa-Dorbud LLC with Turkish investments.

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