The Higher Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine rejected the defense's request to close the criminal proceedings in the "Rotterdam+" case. About this reported the VAX press service.
The court reminds that we are talking about a case in which officials of the National Commission for Energy and Communal Services (NKREKP), as well as representatives of private heat generating companies, appear.
The proceedings concern the "Rotterdam+" formula, due to which electricity consumers, according to estimates, overpaid more than 39 billion hryvnias in the period from 2016 to 2019.
Thus, the defense side in its motions pointed to the violation of the principle of non bis in idem (prohibition of repeated prosecution for the same offense), as well as to the grounds specified in para. 9-1, 10 h. 1 art. 284 of the CPC of Ukraine.
After hearing the arguments of the parties, the court supported the position of the SAP prosecutor and refused to grant the requests of the defense.
The next meeting in the case is scheduled for 12.12.2024 at 12:00.
The essence of the matter
In the "Rotterdam+" case, former and current officials of the National Commission for State Regulation in the Energy and Utilities Sectors (NKREKP) were informed of the suspicion.
On September 22, 2022, NABU and SAP completed the investigation in the "Rotterdam+" case and opened the materials to the defense for perusal.
The head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office Oleksandr Klymenko decided to cancel the decision to close the so-called "Rotterdam+" case as illegal and unfounded.
At the same time, the head of the SAP has completely changed the group of prosecutors in this case "due to inefficient monitoring of compliance with laws during the pre-trial investigation."
On May 5, 2021, the then Prosecutor General, Iryna Venediktova, replaced Vitaliy Ponomarenko, the senior prosecutor of the group of prosecutors in the "Rotterdam+" criminal proceedings, who closed the proceedings three times.
On May 20 of the same year, Denys Demkiv, the new head of the group of prosecutors, decided to close the fourth case - the National Anti-Corruption Bureau will appeal the decision to the head of the prosecutor's office.
In March 2016, the National Commission approved a new methodology for determining the wholesale market price of electricity. According to it, the cost of coal in the production of coal-fired power generation was calculated according to the formula "the cost of coal in the port of Rotterdam plus the cost of its delivery to Ukraine."
Due to the application of the new formula, thermal generation, including the generation of Rinat Akhmetov's DTEK and the state-owned Centerenergo, began to sell electricity at a higher price.
The formula became invalid due to the transition of Ukraine to the new electricity market.
On August 8, 2019, NABU detectives in the "Rotterdam+" case notified six persons of suspicion, in particular the ex-head of the National Commission Dmytro Vovko and Butovsky.
According to the investigation, Vovk, in prior collusion with a group of other persons, developed and in 2016 adopted an unsubstantiated regulatory act, the so-called "Rotterdam+ formula".
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