Ukraine's biggest power producer denies wrongdoing in price-manipulation case:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Ukraine's largest private electricity and coal producer, DTEK, says the country's anti-graft bureau has no "basis" to charge its employees with manipulating electrical power prices, Kyiv-based Concorde Capital investment bank said on August 14, citing the company's recently published investor-relations newsletter.
A separate statement on DTEK's website stated that two of its managers who are accused of pressuring energy-regulator officials into a pricing formula will "fully cooperate" with the ongoing investigation "to help establish the truth."
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) on August 8 charged two DTEK managers, Dmytro Vovk, the former head of the NERC energy regulator, and three current regulators with "abuse of office."
Specifically, NABU alleges that DTEK officials "pressured" and colluded with regulators to raise tariffs on electricity generated from coal that, in turn, forced consumers to overpay $747 million in 2016-17.
Owned by Ukraine's richest billionaire, Rinat Akhmetov, DTEK allegedly took in three-quarters of that amount, or $560 million.
There is "no legitimate basis for suspicions set out in the investigation," DTEK said in an August 8 statement.
Vovk, NERC’s former chief, said on Facebook that NABU proceeded with the case to justify three years spent on a "wild goose chase."
The so-called Rotterdam+ pricing formula that NABU has been investigating since March 2017, was in place from April 2016 until July of this year.
It based the wholesale price of electricity by Ukrainian thermal power plants on coal prices set in the Rotterdam port plus delivery costs to Ukraine.
NABU alleges that at certain times there was no justification for tariff hikes because there was no documentation to prove coal came from Rotterdam.
Ukraine started facing thermal-coal shortages when the armed Donbas conflict in the eastern part of the country erupted in April 2014. A vast majority of the anthracite-coal mines on which many Ukrainian plants rely are located on territory controlled by Russia-backed separatists.
Overnight, Ukraine went from being a net exporter of coal to a net importer and started purchasing coal from as far away as South Africa and Australia.
DTEK controls 70 percent of the private thermal-energy market, according to NABU.
A law went into effect on July 1 that removed Rotterdam+ and replaced it with a model that is supposed remove a state-run company that had a monopoly on buying and selling electricity on the wholesale market.
It is also designed to eliminate cross-subsidization, whereby industrial consumers pay higher prices to compensate for the lower prices households pay.
Deputy minister detained over alleged $1.1 million bribe scheme:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
A Ukrainian deputy minister and his aide have been detained after allegedly taking a bribe worth $480,000, the National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU) said on Facebook.
The August 14 statement names only the suspect's title -- deputy minister of temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced people -- a post that Yuriy Hrymchak has held since March 2017.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), however, confirmed that Hrymchak and his aide were caught "red-handed" while allegedly taking the money, NABU said.
The SBU stated the money was part of a $1.1 million bribe from an entrepreneur that the suspects demanded to "facilitate decision making by persons authorized to perform state functions."
No further details were provided.
Hrymchak and his unnamed aide have been charged with "large-scale or organized fraud," which is punishable by a prison term of up to 20 years, including confiscation of property.
The deputy minister's wife, Yulia Hrymchak, said the authorities searched their residence, according to a Facebook post.