Detectives to help Naftogaz to enforce recovery of $5bn from Russia
An American detective firm will help Naftogaz Group search for Russian assets that can be recovered to enforce the tribunal’s ruling, it was revealed on Thursday.
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In April, the tribunal in The Hague ordered Russia to pay Ukraine’s state energy firm Naftogaz USD 5 billion for illegally seized assets in Crimea, which Moscow has refused to comply with.
K2 Integrity, a US-based detective firm, will help search for Russian commercial assets, on the basis of which Naftogaz "will plan a further strategy for the compulsory collection of compensation from Russia," Oleksiy Chernyshov, the company’s CEO, was quoted as saying.
K2 Integrity was established by Jules Kroll, founder of the Kroll detective agency, and his son Jeremy in 2009.
Kroll is known in Ukraine for conducting a forensic audit of PrivatBank after its nationalisation. In 2004, Kroll sold Kroll Inc. and a few years later founded K2 Intelligence, which is now K2 Integrity.
Naftogaz initiated the arbitration in October 2016 on the basis of the intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and Russia on mutual protection of investments.
The tribunal recognised its jurisdiction in the dispute in February 2019, stating that Russia had illegally expropriated Naftogaz's assets in breach of its obligations under the investment agreement.