A Turkish company won its appeal in a billion-dollar case involving the renovation of the Kyiv-Odesa highway

The Northern Commercial Court of Appeals upheld the ruling ordering the State Agency for Reconstruction to pay more than 1.05 billion hryvnia to the Turkish company Onur for repairs to the Kyiv-Odesa highway.

This was reported by the Center for Public Investigations.

The dispute arose over a contract signed in January 2020 between the then-Ukravtodor and Onur for major repairs to three sections of the Kyiv-Odesa highway. The work was financed by loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank, while the value-added tax was to be covered by the state budget.

After international funding for the project was suspended, the contractor terminated the contract in December 2022. Later, the project engineer confirmed the completion of the work and issued a final payment certificate for over 25.4 million euros; however, the State Agency for Reconstruction did not disburse these funds.

In March 2024, the company filed a lawsuit with the Kyiv Commercial Court. The trial court granted the claim and ordered the agency to pay over 918.5 million hryvnias in principal debt, 172.45 million hryvnias in VAT, and over 1 million hryvnias in court fees. The total amount of the award exceeded 1.09 billion hryvnias.

The State Agency for Reconstruction appealed this decision, citing the suspension of international funding, the lack of budgetary allocations, an arbitration clause in the contract, and the fact that the contractor allegedly continued to perform the work despite knowing there were no funds to pay for it.

The case had already been reviewed on appeal. In March 2025, the court overturned the first-instance decision and dismissed the company’s claim. However, in November of that same year, the Supreme Court partially granted Onur’s cassation appeal, overturned the appellate court’s ruling, and remanded the case for a new trial, citing violations of procedural law.

During the retrial, the Reconstruction Agency requested that new evidence be admitted, specifically information made public in 2026 regarding a settlement between the EBRD and Onur concerning the bid-rigging scheme. However, the court refused to consider these documents because they did not exist at the time the trial court rendered its decision.

As a result, the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal concluded that the Kyiv Commercial Court had fully examined the circumstances of the case and correctly applied the rules of substantive and procedural law.

The State Agency’s appeal was dismissed, the first-instance decision was upheld, and the State Agency for Infrastructure Restoration and Development of Ukraine was ordered to pay the court fees for filing the appeal.

Ірина Глухова