PRESS RELEASE: Court arrest of shopping mall "Ukraina" shares upheld
Kyiv, 30 November 2011. Today Kyiv City Commercial Court held another hearing in a case instigated by the law firm Yurbusinessconsulting against the majority shareholder of the shopping mall "Ukraina" Quinn Holdings Sweden AB (QHS). Judge Sergiy Stanik turned down almost all applications and motions filed by the representatives of QHS, including an application to set aside a provisional remedy. Consequently, QHS' shares in the shopping mall "Ukraina" remain under arrest. The next court hearing is scheduled for December 14, 2011. "We do not understand why our application to set aside a provisional remedy has been turned down" – said QHS' legal representatives from the attorneys' association Magisters. "The shares, the market value of which is hundreds of times higher than the value of the actual case, have been under arrest for over half a year. Moreover, for the second time in a row the claimant has failed to attend the court hearing." A suit brought by Yurbusinessconsulting against Quinn Holdings Sweden AB (QHS) to extract a debt for alleged legal services worth nearly UAH 1.8 million was filed in court in April 2011. In response to a court decision to sustain the claim, the state executor of the Podilskiy Department of the State Enforcement Service placed a seizure on all shares in PAT Univermag Ukraina belonging to QHS, a stake whose market value is in the tens of millions of US dollars. This case, like two other lawsuits tied to Univermag Ukraina, is being heard by Judge Serhiy Stanik. All three cases apparently found their way to the same judge through the system of random distribution of legal cases, although the Commercial Court of the City of Kyiv has nearly 70 judges on its roster. The Yurbusinessconsulting case is one of several lawsuits initiated to challenge the interests of the main shareholder in "Ukraina," Quinn Holdings Sweden AB, a Swedish company, and the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, an Irish state bank that had financed the acquisition of the QHS stake in “Ukraina”. According to QHS Director Robert Dix, his company, a foreign investor and majority shareholder, has effectively been deprived of control over its own assets. QHS has already written an open letter to Ukrainian Premier Mykola Azarov on this matter with a request that the situation within the company be brought under his personal supervision. The full text of the letter can be found at http://www.univermagukraina.com. The situation with Univermag Ukraina has come to the attention to the international community. The case has been written up in the Financial Times and in a number of Irish business publications. Commenting for the Irish Times newspaper, the press officer of the Prime Minister of Ireland stated that the question of QHS and IBRC assets was brought up at a meeting between the Head of the Irish Government and Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych. Quinn Holdings Sweden AB was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Stockholm. Quinn Holdings Sweden AB (QHS) is the majority shareholder of PAT Univermag Ukraine, a publicly held company in Kyiv, Ukraine. Currently holding nearly 93% of the company's stock, QHS is acting to exercise its lawful right to participate in managing the company and is calling for a change in the current management of the shopping center, with whom there have been serious misunderstandings on the part of the shareholder. IBRC (Irish Bank Resolution Corporation) is a financial institution that is fully owned by the Republic of Ireland and thus, indirectly, by all Irish taxpayers. Prior to a name change on Oct. 14, 2011, IBRC was known as the Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Limited. Founded in 1964 in Dublin, the company continues to have its headquarters there today, with offices in other cities in Ireland and Britain, and representative offices in Boston and New York. At the moment, the bank is being forced to actively assert its rights and lawful interests in the suits that have been initiated very recently in the Commercial Court of the City of Kyiv with the purpose of removing encumbrances on assets that have been placed under lien in the bank's favor. For additional information, contact: Oleksiy Syvak, Senior Advisor, CFC Consulting +38 (044) 492-75-99 or os@cfc.com.ua The press release has been issued on commercial terms. The Interfax-Ukraine News Agency is not responsible for its contents.