Tymoshenko says government has taken full control of Kryvorizhstal

KYIV - Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said on June 8 that Ukraine's government has taken full control of the Kryvorizhstal steel mill, which was sold last year in the country's most controversial privatization deal.

"The government takes under its total control ... Kryvorizhstal's activity," Ms. Tymoshenko told reporters.

She said the government will also begin considering how to compensate the mill's current owners, adding that the final decision is in part up to the court.

The prime minister expressed hope that the mill, which produces 20 percent of Ukraine's steel, could be resold by the end of the year. She had said on June 6 that Viktor Pinchuk and Rynat Akhmetov, two oligarchs who had bought Kryvorizhstal last year, would be allowed to participate in the new auction.

Valentyna Semeniuk, chair of Ukraine's State Property Fund, said it would take about 100 days to hold a new tender.

Messrs. Pinchuk and Akhmetov still have a month to appeal to a higher court, said their lawyer, Serhii Vlasenko. Mr. Vlasenko called the government's move premature, noting that "at a minimum, they must wait until all appeals procedures at the national level are over."

He said that the tycoons are preparing an appeal to the High Economic Court, noting that, even if they lose in that court, they can appeal again to Ukraine's Supreme Court. They also have an ongoing complaint before the European Court of Human Rights.

Prime Minister Tymoshenko, however, said she was confident that the final decision would not change.

"Everybody understands that the privatization of Kryvorizhstal was made with a lot of violations of the law," Ms. Tymoshenko said.

- Olga Nuzhinskaya

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 12, 2005, No. 24, Vol. LXXIII

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