Criminal Proceedings Initiated Against the Judge Who Got Two Appartments in Czech Republic After She Ruled in Favour of Kolomoisky’s Relative

The NABU instituted criminal proceedings against Judge of Dnipro Court of Appeal Lyudmila Karataeva. This was reported by the NABU Civil Oversight Council on its Facebook page.

In December, analyst Oleskiy Zhyrenkov highlighted the investigation platform that judge Lyudmila Karatayeva had two apartments in Czech Karlovy Vary, not mentioned in her declaration. At the same time, the first of the two appeared when Karataeva was considering one the cases of PrivatBank nationalization.

Then, she ruled in favour of Ihor Kolomoisky’s relative. The judge decided that Oleksandr Chertok, husband of Kolomoisky’s sister, was not a related person. As a result, his funds that were held in the PrivatBank accounts pending the nationalization were not subject to the bail-in procedure, i.e. the conversion into the bank’s capital, and should be returned to Chertok. The disputed amount totalled approximately ₴60 million.

The Civil Oversight Council addressed the NABU with a request to verify the fact of non-declaring the apartments by the judge and, if confirmed, to submit the information to the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations. On January 9, the NABU reported that, in the follow-up to the request, their detectives had submitted the information to Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations under Article 366-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (False Information Declaration). The pre-trial investigation is currently ongoing.