The Special Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) has requested that former Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev be held in custody with an option of bail in the amount of UAH 365 million, the SAPO press service has said.
Kobolyev is suspected of abuse of office because he issued bonuses worth more than UAH 229 million.
The court hearing to choose a pre-trial measure of restraint is scheduled for 19 January.
Kobolyev was served with a notice of suspicion of misappropriation of over UAH 229 million in 2018.
In 2018, Andriy Kobolyev received a bonus of $7.9 million (and transferred it to his mother in the USA) and the company's commercial director Yuriy Vitrenko received a $6 million bonus for winning a dispute against Gazprom over a transit contract in the Stockholm Arbitration Court. The total amount of the bonuses paid to Naftogaz's 41 executives was approved at 1% of the $46.3 million won in the arbitration ($4.6 billion).
The State Audit Service claimed that Kobolyev was paid UAH 228 million in bonuses in violation of a government decree. However, Naftogaz appealed and asked the court to declare this claim unlawful and cancel it.
Kobolyev was suddenly dismissed from his position as head of Naftogaz in 2021. He was replaced by Yuriy Vitrenko. Vitrenko was dismissed last year, and replaced by Oleksiy Chernyshov, who was the minister of regional development.