Former Naftogaz of Ukraine CEO Andriy Kobolyev has said he has received a new motion in which the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) to change the pre-trial measure of restraint for him from bail of UAH 229m to detention.
On Facebook, he said that NABU asked the High Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) to place him in custody with an alternative bail of UAH 365m.
"In addition, if bail is deposited, I should be assigned a number of commitments, such as not to leave my place of residence, to deposit my passports (including the national passport of a citizen of Ukraine), and to wear a bracelet. There will be a new trial," he said.
Kobolyev added that his foreign accounts have been blocked until the circumstances of the criminal proceedings are clarified. According to him, this happened automatically after the announcement of suspicion in the corruption case - on suspicion of illegally receiving a bonus for defeating Gazprom in the Stockholm arbitration.
"Of course, I have accounts in Ukraine, which, by the way, were arrested at the end of December 2022 for reasons that are still unclear to me. Both the SAPO and the NABU are well aware of this, as I provided confirmation of these facts during the consideration of their motion to take me into custody at the HACC," he added.
On 8 February 2018, the Stockholm Arbitration Court ordered Russian Gazprom to pay Naftogaz of Ukraine an additional $2.56 billion in compensation for the shortfall in the agreed volumes of gas for transit.
In 2018, Kobolyev received a bonus of $7.9m (and transferred it to his mother in the USA), while the company's commercial director Yuriy Vitrenko received a $6m bonus for winning a dispute against Gazprom over a transit contract in the Stockholm Arbitration Court.
The total amount of bonuses for Naftogaz's 41 employees was approved at $46.3m, or 1% of the $4.6bn won in the arbitration.
The State Audit Service claimed that Kobolyev was paid UAH 228m in bonuses in violation of a government decree. However, Naftogaz appealed to the court to declare this claim unlawful and cancel it.
Kobolyev was suddenly dismissed as head of Naftogaz in 2021. Yuriy Vitrenko was appointed instead. Vitrenko was fired last year, and Oleksiy Chernyshov, who was the minister of regional development, took over the helm of the company.
As soon as in January 2023, Kobolyev was notified of suspicion of misappropriation of more than UAH 229m in 2018. According to the investigation, in May 2018, the head of the company allegedly issued an order to bonus the company's employees in violation of the law, on the basis of which he was paid almost UAH 261m (equivalent of USD 10m) for extraordinary achievements.
The HACC as a court of first instance refused to take Kobolyev into custody, but the Appeals Chamber ruled that he should post bail of over UAH 229m. Today, the SAPO reported that it is unaware of the timely deposit of the bail.