BIIR Property, a Danish company, was awarded a victory on Feb. 27 by the Odesa Appellate Economic Court in a case involving the rightful ownership of its property. The Odesa Appellate Economic Court canceled a lower Odesa court ruling and decided the disputed property belongs solely to BIIR. In addition, the court assigned BIIR’s opponent to pay his previously unpaid court costs plus assigned the court costs incurred by BIIR in its defense, for a total of more than 158,000 hryvnias. The victory for BIIR comes 11 months after the company first purchased the Odesa property.
“This is a victory for Ukrainians in the fight against corruption, and a positive signal for foreign investors. It shows that companies like BIIR can be successful in Ukraine by being persistent and work officially,” BIIR Chairman Thomas Sillesen said. “We thank all of our friends who helped us keep attention and focus on this case.”
BIIR Property, a Danish company, was awarded a victory on Feb. 27 by the Odesa Appellate Economic Court in a case involving the rightful ownership of this property near the Black Sea. (Courtesy)
Sillesen has been actively lobbying his case through politicians, including President Petro Poroshenko, business associations and the news media.
“With this verdict we get to keep ownership of our property,” Sillesen said. ” We are happy that justice has prevailed and we hope the decision of the court marks a change for better guarantees for investors. We are actually positively surprised by the verdict, having expected to have to fight all the way to the Supreme Court or even the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (France). We will await whether our opponent appeals, but sure, it looks positive. However, it is still absurd that we had to take this fight in the first place. Had there been rule of law in Ukraine, neither the National Police nor local prosecutors would have engaged in this case. We have learned the hard way that rule of law is still a relatively unknown thing in Ukraine, and something we will have to help Ukraine achieve, by pushing very strongly the government and authorities, until they improve the situation dramatically.”
BIIR’s troubles started in March 2017, when the company bought a dilapidated, foreclosed building in Odesa to set up a new office, paying around $400,000 to local real estate firm Odesa Prime.
Just a few days after BIIR bought the building, it was arrested by a local court and BIIR discovered that its previous owner, construction company Megas-Stroy, had filed a case claiming that a collecting company had illegally sold the property.
The court ruled the building should be returned to its previous owners, local businesspeople Oleksandr Tikhomirov and Valentyn Skoblenko. Skoblenko is also a beneficiary of Megas-Stroy and a former Odesa city council member. He is a political ally of the former Central Election Commission head Sergiy Kivalov, who is highly influential in the Odesa courts. Skoblenko was unavailable for comment, while Tikhomirov denied BIIR had any right to the building.
BIIR Property, a Danish company, was awarded a victory on Feb. 27 by the Odesa Appellate Economic Court in a case involving the rightful ownership of its property near the Black Sea. (Courtesy)
In an earlier Kyiv Post story published on Feb. 23, Sillesen said he is optimistic that justice will win in the end. In 2017, the company’s lawyer Alexey Lebedev and his team filed an appeal and lifted two arrests warrants for the building in the courts. But the legal fight for ownership goes on — the next court hearing is on Feb. 27.
BIIR has complained to the Supreme Council of Justice about the two judges who ordered the initial arrest of the building, claiming the judges had no legal grounds to do so.
“We’ve got the best legal team and international support,” Sillesen said. “The result of BIIR’s case will be crucial for Ukraine’s reputation among foreign investors. And your country needs a lot of foreign investment.”
Sillesen added that Ukrainian government understood the importance of BIIR’s case.
“We’ve got an official letter of support from Poroshenko’s people, who said they will do all they can to encourage law enforcers and the court to work more effectively,” Sillesen said.
