In Odesa, the court upheld the claim of the Krayan trade union for the return of property

In Odesa, a lawsuit filed by the Krayan trade union to reclaim property was rejected due to deficiencies in the documents. The plaintiff was given 10 days to correct the deficiencies, otherwise the claim will be considered unfiled.

The relevant ruling was made by a judge of the Commercial Court of Odesa Oblast.

The court in Odesa upheld the claim of the Primary Trade Union Organization of OJSC HC Krayan against Odesa City Council, Private Enterprise Kommservice and LLC All-Ukrainian Asset Management Center.

The plaintiff sought to reclaim non-residential premises and buildings with a total area of more than 37 thousand square meters from the defendants' illegal possession.

In particular, it was about

• administrative premises at 2-D Kosovska Street in Odesa with a total area of 14,394.5 square meters
• a completed facility at 2 Kosovska Street with non-residential premises with a total area of 15,718.6 square meters
• a complex of non-residential buildings at 9/1-A Airportivska Street with an area of 3,708.7 square meters and another facility on the same street with an area of 3,697.3 square meters, which includes warehouses, workshops, boiler houses, power substations and administrative buildings.

The plaintiff claimed that the property was illegally transferred to the defendants after a sham auction. In the lawsuit, the trade union also asked the court to exempt it from paying the court fee due to its allegedly difficult financial situation and lack of income.

The court found that the statement of claim did not meet the requirements of the Commercial Procedure Code: the rules of filing were violated and insufficient evidence of the financial condition of the union was provided. The statement of claim contained only certificates of bank account balances and financial statements for 2017-2019, which did not confirm the inability to pay the court fee.

The judge gave the union 10 days to eliminate the identified deficiencies. Failure to comply with the ruling will be considered as a failure to file the lawsuit and will be returned to the applicant.

Last year, the media published a list of the most high-profile criminal proceedings that the High Anti-Corruption Court has been considering for years. Among them was the case of former Odesa mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov regarding the acquisition of the Krayan plant.

The former mayor of Odesa and five other people were accused of embezzling more than UAH 92 million from the city budget through a scheme to buy municipal property, the administrative building of the former Krayan plant, at a double price.

Анна Бальчінос