The Special Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) and the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) served a notice of suspicion to oligarch Kostyantyn Zhevaho, owner of the Finance and Credit group. The suspicion concerns the case of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Vsevolod Knyazev, according to the SAPO.
Zhevaho is suspected of a crime under Part 4 of Article 369 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The SAPO noted that it was possible to establish that the businessman had contacts with one of the lawyers of the law firm, which was used as a back office to disguise criminal activity in the Supreme Court. The lawyer acted as an intermediary in transferring a bribe to the leadership of the Supreme Court to make a court decision in the businessman's favour.
The investigation established that in 2002, Zhevaho acquired a 40.19% stake in the mining and processing plant from four companies. Eighteen years later, the former shareholders filed a lawsuit with the economic court to invalidate the sale and purchase agreement and reclaim their shares in the plant, but the court dismissed the claim.
In 2022, an appeal overturned the first instance decision and invalidated the securities sale and purchase agreement. So, in order to prevent the loss of the shares, in early March 2023, Zhevaho colluded with the back office lawyer in the Supreme Court. In March-April, the tycoon transferred $2.7 million to the lawyer ($1.8 million to the judges of the Supreme Court, the rest as "payment" for intermediary services). On 19 April, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the businessman.
In May, court chairman Vsevolod Knyazev and lawyer Oleh Horetskyy were caught red-handed while transferring the second tranche of $450,000.
The SAPO added that Zhevaho is in France, so he was notified of the suspicion as part of international legal assistance.