Mr. Valery Tomilenko within the period from December 16, 2014 to April 29, 2015, was holding the position of the Chairman of the Board of the Public Joint-Stock Company State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine (PJSC SFGCU).
In 2016 Mr. Tomilenko was arrested and further accused of embezzlement of public funds.
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) alleges that Mr. Tomilenko had colluded with two heads of private enterprises and entered into two fictitious contracts for the supply of corn. Since the PJSC SFGCU made the advance payment, and the contracts were not performed on time, this, according to the law enforcement agencies, caused damage of almost UAH 90 million.
On September 29, 2021, the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) issued the judgement of acquittal of Mr. Tomilenko and two other accused. The HACC concluded that SAPO did not provide any evidence of collusion between the accused. As the result of the conclusion of these agreements, the PJSC SFGCU made a profit. The court also noted that economic activity is always associated with the risk of failure to fulfill its obligations and may cause damage to one or both parties to the agreement, but this does not make the parties of such an agreement criminals.
The team of criminal law practice, consisting of Naraz Kulchytskyy, partner, Adriana Kulchytska, senior associate and Marko Holovach, associate, worked on the Client's defense strategy and representation.