The High Anti-Corruption Court has ordered former Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev to wear an electronic bracelet monitor
The court made the decision at a hearing on Tuesday, 14 March.
The judge partially granted the motion to change the measure of pre-trial restraint for Kobolyev. The prosecutor requested his arrest with an option to post bail in the amount of UAH 365 million. The court imposed an additional obligation to wear a bracelet, but left the bail unchanged at UAH 229 million.
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.