The Verkhovna Rada Wants to Dekriminalize Hundreds of Corruption Crimes: Under Threat of Dismissal of the Rotterdam+ Case, Ukrnafta, and Nasirov

The Verkhovna Rada wants to decriminalize hundreds of corruption crimes: Under threat is the Rotterdam+ case, Ukrnafta, and Nasirov

Also, an amendment to the law would make it impossible to investigate potential overpricing in public procurement.

An amendment to the bill on eliminating contradictions in the punishability of criminal offenses No. 8235 in the Verkhovna Rada proposes to introduce changes after which the defendants in hundreds of corruption cases will evade responsibility.

According to the Anti-Corruption Center, this concerns an amendment to Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (abuse of power or official position).

In particular, the parliament proposes decriminalizing also those crimes that are being investigated by NABU/SAP or are already considered by the Anti-Corruption Court.

Specifically, after adopting the amendment, those whose offense is abuse of power or official position would fall out of the crime when a official abuses power not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of third parties.

In particular, after the amendment is adopted, defendants in such cases as Rotterdam+ (according to the investigation, officials of the NPCRK made illegal decisions in the interests of the DTEK group of companies of Rinat Akhmetov, causing losses to the state of about 40 billion hryvnias), the cases of Ukrnafta officials (acted in the interests of third parties, including the oligarch Kolomoiskyi's group, and led to losses to the state of over 13 billion hryvnias), former FTS head Roman Nasirov (abused power in favor of former MP Oleksandr Onyshchenko). The amendments would also allow avoiding responsibility for abuses in reconstruction and procurement for the Armed Forces.

There is also a provision that already issued verdicts in the High Anti-Corruption Court under this article will largely be overturned.

This same amendment could significantly hamper investigations into artificial overpricing in procurements. In particular, it would complicate the investigation of the Defense Ministry's egg procurement worth 17 hryvnias, since the crime would be considered only as causing “real material damage.”

“This means that buying a state body’s goods at twice the price is unlikely to be considered as causing ‘real material damage’ to the state,” said Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Center.

He noted that formally the amendment is proposed by Grigoriy Mamka, a deputy from the now-banned “Opposition Platform — For Life,” but the reality of its adoption will become clear today when it is considered by the Parliament’s relevant law enforcement committee.

It is expected that the bill will be considered in the Parliament in the second reading later this week.