Ukraine’s richest billionaire Rinat Akhmetov allegedly paid $700 million to settle a seven-year dispute with another oligarch, Dmytro Firtash, over the sale of Ukrtelecom, the country’s biggest fixed-line telecoms group, Ukrainian media reported on Jan. 13.
The $700 million sum was part of the Oct. 1 settlement between the oligarchs, Ekonomichna Pravda reported, referring to its sources.
Although Akhmetov’s SCM acknowledged the transaction, they would not disclose the amount of money paid, stating that this was private information.
The dispute between the two had been going on since 2013 after Akhmetov’s SCM holding bought Ukrtelecom from Firtash’s Raga company. On paper, the agreement cost $860 million, but Akhmetov paid only $100 million.
Firtash had been claiming the remaining $760 million since then, while Akhmetov refused to pay the full sum.
Akhmetov claimed Firtash did not fulfill his investment obligations agreed upon when he privatized Ukrtelecom in 2011 for $1.3 billion through his company Raga and its subsidiary ESU. Ukraine’s government, in turn, blamed Akhmetov for not investing enough.
While they pointed fingers at each other, the Ukrainian government had been unsuccessfully trying to get Ukrtelecom back – re-nationalize it – suing Akhmetov as the current owner of Ukrtelecom. The government lost an appeal against the oligarch in 2019.
In 2018, Akhmetov was served with an order from a Cyprus court freezing $820 million worth of his assets. Forbes reported that the freeze included an apartment in London’s One Hyde Park development in Knightsbridge, the most expensive private residence in the U.K. when it was bought.
In October 2019, Firtash and Akhmetov finally settled the dispute, Firtash giving up on the litigation in exchange for the payment for Akhmetov’s debt.
Ukrtelecom’s revenues in 2018 were $240 million, while its profit was $18 million. The company employs 24,000 people.
Akhmetov and Firtash used to be political allies of ex-President Viktor Yanukovich, ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014.
Akhmetov’s empire expands from telecoms to coal, steel, energy, and sport, as he also owns the soccer club Shakhtar Donetsk. Meanwhile, Dmytro Firtash is in exile in Austria, awaiting possible extradition to the United States on corruption charges that he has described as trumped up.
