Kyiv Commercial Court Protected Sense Bank from Multibillion-Dollar Lawsuits, Refusing to Allow Kernel to Collect 39 Million Dollars

Kyiv Commercial Court protected Sense Bank from multibillion-dollar lawsuits, refusing to allow Kernel to collect 39 million dollars

The Kyiv Commercial Court 30 on September left without consideration a claim by Etrecom Investments Limited, a company related to the Kernel agroholding, which demanded to collect almost $39 million in solidary liability with Cypriot Greatford Limited and the state-owned Sense Bank.

This was written by former editor of Ekonomichna Pravda Serhiy Lyament, citing the court’s decision

“There were two reasons for denial. First - lack of Ukrainian jurisdiction. In plain terms, the court refused to hear in Ukraine a dispute between two Cypriot offshore companies. Second - so-called arbitration clause. If the two sides agreed in advance to be litigated in London, then that is where they must litigate,” he writes

As the document shows, the plaintiff did not justify sub judice in the Kyiv Economic Court. Also in the contracts between Etrecom and Greatford it was stipulated that disputes over their terms would be heard exclusively by English courts.

Two offshore entities litigated in Kyiv

Etrecom is a Cypriot company, which is described as the financial center of the large Ukrainian farming group Kernel. Greatford is also registered in Cyprus and historically connected with the corporate circle of former owners of Alfa-Bank Ukraine.

In 2021 year two offshore companies concluded a series of agreements on Loan Participation Notes (LPN) — bonds of participation in a loan, issued by Dutch E.M.I.S. Finance B.V. Greatford sold Etrecom several blocks of these securities and was to buy them back under certain conditions. Subsequently, there was no reverse buyback, and Kernel would have to wait for the redemption of its LPNs until 2029 year.

“However, the group’s lawyers found a way to speed up the return of money. For this they decided to sue in Kyiv,” Lyament wrote.

In 2026 year Etrecom filed a suit in Ukraine, involving Sense Bank as a co-defendant. In the author’s view, Kernel’s lawyers artificially tied the private dispute of two Cypriot offshore entities to Ukrainian jurisdiction. The participation of the Ukrainian bank was supposed to create a formal basis for hearing the dispute in Kyiv.

Sense Bank could have lost 1,75 billion

The claim amounted to about $39 million, or roughly 1,75 billion hryvnias at the current rate.

“In reality, Greatford has no money, so the plaintiff—Sense Bank, as the co-defendant—had to pay for it.”

1,75 billion is almost 11% of the bank’s current capital, which stands at 15,82 billion hryvnias. A withdrawal of such a large amount would be a death sentence for any bank,” Lyament noted.

Sense Bank was nationalized in July 2023 year, so possible losses to the bank could ultimately become a state problem. The author suggests that a significant deterioration of capital could force the state to recapitalize the bank at the expense of the budget.

“Sense Bank is a huge systemic bank. Its collapse would affect hundreds of thousands of clients, and the economy would lose billions of hryvnias and get a huge hole in GDP. That’s why a claim of nearly $39 million against Sense Bank cannot be treated merely as a private dispute between companies,” he wrote.

Sense Bank’s lawyers were unusually passive

The author pays special attention to the behavior of the parties. In his assessment, Greatford’s lawyers acted more actively than Sense Bank and Ministry of Finance representatives, even though the state-owned bank bore a significant financial risk.

“In court Kernel’s lawyers faced Greatford’s, which are linked to former owners, more than Sense Bank or the Ministry of Finance. The latter behaved unusually passively. In particular, Sense Bank and the Ministry of Finance’s lawyers completely ignored the fact that the judge was Svitlana Pohribna, sent from Poltava to Kyiv Commercial Court... She likely had a strong conflict of interest in this case,” Lyament noted.

According to him, only Greatford raised the issue of recusal of Judge Svitlana Pohribna, who had previously presided over Kernel cases. After the recusal was rejected, some media wrote about the judge’s conflict of interest. Yet Sense Bank filed its own recusal motion only 29 in July—the same day Pohrihna declared self-recusal.

“That coincidence struck me as suspicious, because it looked like a technical operation. Perhaps the bank’s lawyers already knew of the judge’s intent to declare self-recusal and rushed to save face by filing a motion. After which they were denied, to satisfy Pohrihna’s own application,” the author stated.

The author suggested that with silent consent of state bank lawyers, Judge Pohrihna might have actually heard Kernel’s suit if not for journalists, and for the state her decision would have had catastrophic consequences.

He separately noted that Greatford primarily defended itself. Its private interest in the case objectively coincided with Ukraine’s material interest. Yet the behavior of state lawyers looked very suspicious.

The author interprets such behavior by the state bank as overly passive, though there is no evidence of an agreement between Sense Bank officials and Kernel.

The court’s decision could be connected to the “Forrest Gump” case

Lyament drew attention to another strange coincidence at the final stage of the process.

29 September Sense Bank filed a request that the case should not be heard in Ukraine due to exclusive English jurisdiction. And already 30 September the Kyiv Commercial Court left Kernel’s claim without consideration. Thus, between Sense’s filing and the court’s decision only one day passed.

“The Kyiv Commercial Court granted this request and at the same time managed to draft a fairly detailed nine-page reasoning text—usually such things take several days... I don’t know about you, but to me it looks like another technical decision. It’s very similar to what the bank’s lawyers filed a motion for when it was already basically known that the court would deny Kernel,” the author noted.

The author suggested that major changes in Sense Bank’s leadership structure occurred on the eve of this.

“19 August, after a political scandal, the head of Sense Bank’s supervisory board Mykola Hladyshenko was suspended, and the bank’s CEO Oleksiy Stupak was charged. Two weeks later, in the framework of the high-profile Forest Gump investigation, the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) chose preventive measures for both... I believe this sharp change in leadership arrangements at Sense Bank became another reason the Kernel case did not go through,” he says.

Risk of multibillion-dollar claims

According to the author, the case could have broader consequences than just Kernel’s claim for $39 million.

If the agrarian holding wins, other owners of similar LPN could try to use the same mechanism and bring claims against Sense Bank as well. In his assessment, the total volume of potential claims in such a scenario could reach billions of hryvnias.

“I don’t know the total volume of issued LPNs, but rumors say it’s half a billion dollars,” the author noted.

Among the large holders of such papers are the ICU group of Makara Pashenyuk and Kostyantyn Stetsenko. The author stressed there is no basis to claim that ICU is preparing a similar claim. It is only about the potential possibility of using such a precedent.

Thus, the Kyiv Commercial Court’s decision effectively closed the possibility of collecting huge sums from the state-owned Sense Bank, which would burden the state budget.

“A simple denial to hear the claim costs significantly more than $39 million. The decision goes far beyond the Etrecom–Greatford–Sense Bank dispute,” Lyament noted.