For the second time, a Ukrainian prosecutor suspended the investigation into a $1.4 billion-worth alleged corruption scheme involving DTEK, the energy company of Ukraine’s richest oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.
In the evening of Jan. 21, prosecutor Vitaliy Ponomarenko closed the case widely known as “Rotterdam+”. Named after the energy hub in the Netherlands, the coal formula was a scheme that made Ukrainian energy consumers overpay Hr 39 billion ($1.4 billion) in 2016-2019, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, known as NABU.
Ponomarenko, a prosecutor of the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), halted the investigation without notifying the NABU detectives, who had dug into it for three years.
At this stage, the case was ready to go to court and Ponomarenko’s job was to hand it to judges, according to NABU. However, he refused to do so, saying that he believed the formula caused no material losses to anyone.
According to the detectives, NABU obtained three expert analyses that estimate the losses. One of them points out that the formula cost public energy consumers Hr 39 billion ($1.4 billion) in unnecessary losses.
This money became an additional profit for DTEK Group, which controls 70% of the country’s coal energy production, according to the detectives. The company’s employees created the formula and colluded with officials from the regulator to make it law, NABU found.
DTEK denied the accusations of collusion.
Read more: Why authorities are trying to kill key Rotterdam+ investigation
Rotterdam+ set energy prices based on the coal index in European hubs, “plus” the cost of the coal’s delivery to Ukraine. The country sought to import coal after Russia had invaded and occupied Ukraine’s coal-rich Donbas region.
However, there was no need for including the price of the shipment in the tariff as the vast majority of coal came from domestic producers.
The formula ran from 2016 until July 2019.
It is not the first attempt of Ponomarenko to halt the investigation. In August 2020, he has already stopped the case, obstructing it from going to court.
However, on Oct. 27, the High Anti-Corruption Court ordered the prosecutor to reopen the Rotterdam+ investigation.
NABU detectives repeatedly but unsuccessfully asked the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) to replace Ponomarenko with any other prosecutor to oversee the case.
This time, the detectives are again preparing their complaint to PG, calling it to renew the case and change the prosecutor.
If the prosecutor’s office does nothing, the NABU detectives will count on court.
