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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The Supreme Court has final confirmed the ruling to collect from the founder of the investment company Inzhur, former member of parliament Andriy Zhurzhiy, more than 2,7 million hryvnias in interest under the loan agreement.
Zhuzhiy’s company is known for large deals in the real estate market — in particular, Inzhur will buy a shopping mall for 36 million dollars, while the founder of the fund turned out to be a debtor in a private case that lasted over 2 years.
According to case materials, 18 August 2022 the parties signed a loan agreement. Under the document, Andriy Zhurzhii received from Valeriy Georgiyovych Kulyk 20,37 million hryvnias, which at the time of signing amounted to 500 thousand dollars. The debtor was to return the funds by 28 February 2023.
The lender claimed that the funds were not returned within the specified term. Initially he sent the debtor a demand on 1 March 2023, and after refusal — a claim on 31 March. In fact, the debtor returned the loan amount only on 20 July 2023, but without paying any interest for the use of the funds.
The plaintiff insisted that the contract did not include a clause about zero interest, and therefore demanded interest for the period from 19 August 2022 to 28 February 2023 — at the National Bank of Ukraine policy rate of 25% per year. The amount of the claim was 2,7 million hryvnias.
How the courts reviewed the case three times
Solomianskyi District Court on 28 November 2024 denied the claim, citing a Civil Code provision that exempts debtors from paying interest during the period of martial law. In the same decision the court additionally recovered 40 thousand hryvnias in legal costs from the plaintiff for the lawyer.
However, the Kyiv Appeal Court on 13 May 2025 overturned this decision and fully satisfied the claim. The appellate instance noted that the provision on relief from liability for late payment applies to penalties and fines, not to interest for the legitimate use of the loan, which is regulated by a separate article of the Civil Code. The court ordered the debtor to pay the lender 2,7 million hryvnias in interest.
The debtor’s representative challenged the appellate court’s decision in cassation, arguing that the loan was effectively extended in dollars, and therefore the rules on accruing interest in hryvnias should not apply. The defense even asked to transfer the case to the plenary chamber of the Supreme Court for reconsideration of prior practice.
The panel of judges of the Cassation Civil Court rejected all defense arguments and refused to transfer the case for consideration by the plenary chamber. The Supreme Court found that the contract terms did not contain a direct indication of its gratuitous nature, and therefore the lender had the right to receive interest.
Why the debtor’s position did not work
The key argument was that, despite tying the amount to the dollar exchange rate, the contract explicitly defined that the funds were issued and returned in hryvnias in cash. This distinguished the case from precedents cited by the debtor’s defense, where the lending currency was indeed dollars rather than hryvnias with a dollar equivalent.
The court also reminded of the presumption of indebtedness in a loan agreement: if the text does not explicitly state that the loan is interest-free, the creditor has the right to demand interest at the NBK policy rate. This rule applies regardless of whether the interest is detailed in the contract itself.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Засновника Inzhur Журжія зобов’язали сплатити 2,7 млн гривень за борговими зобов’язаннями". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: 368.media.
