With the outbreak of the great war, the number of corporate conflicts decreased sharply. In relations between ardent opponents in most segments of the Ukrainian economy, a truce and consensus have emerged.
But there are also exceptions. We looked at several of the most high-profile cases where relations between businesses went beyond the usual competition.
Sakhalin field
After the destruction of a significant part of electricity production, Ukraine needs additional volumes of natural gas. There is another risk factor – stopping transit from Russia to Europe. Some experts believe that if Naftogaz transit is stopped, it will not be possible to maintain the required technological pressure in Ukrainian gas pipelines. So in this case, gas will not be available in every Ukrainian city.
At the same time, Ukrnaftoburenie stopped production from December 1, 2023 at one of the largest fields in Ukraine - Sakhalin - in pursuance of a court decision to revoke the company’s special permit for this field.
Sakhalinka is one of the largest hydrocarbon sites in Ukraine, located in the Kharkov region. Its proven reserves are about 15 billion cubic meters of gas, 1.7 million tons of gas condensate and about the same amount of oil.
The legal red tape between the State Service of Geology and Subsoil and Ukrnaftoburenie lasts almost 15 years. In the last decade, it included famous personalities: Eduard Stavitsky, Nikolai Zlochevsky, Vitaly Khomutynnik, Pavel Fuks and Igor Kolomoisky.
Unofficial sources on the market have no doubt that stopping the operation of the field is a way of negotiations between some of the previous beneficiaries of Ukrnaftodobycha among themselves and with the state.
Meanwhile, due to the shutdown of the Sakhalin field, Ukraine lost 600 million cubic meters of gas from the projected balance. This was stated by the head of Naftogaz, Alexey Chernyshev, in an interview with LB.ua.
“The licenses are not working now, the field is shut down. This is the wrong situation. We lost 600 million cubic meters of gas from the projected balance,” said the head of Naftogaz, Alexey Chernyshev. And restoring production at this field - if an appropriate decision is made - will take time.
Gambling versus lotteries
The financial performance of the Ukrainian gaming market is impressive. According to Opendatabot (a Ukrainian company that provides access to government data from major public registers for citizens and businesses - ed.), the 10 largest gambling companies officially increased their wealth by 28 times last year. The leader was the company Spacex (Cosmolot brand), and the largest increase in earnings - 425 times - was the company Favbet (FAVBET brand).
Last year, the turnover of the gambling business in Ukraine amounted to 12-15 billion UAH per month, or up to 180 billion UAH per year. Every day, online casino players in Ukraine spent about UAH 400 million.
For 7 months of 2024, gambling organizers paid UAH 9.8 billion in taxes to the budget. According to Daniil Getmantsev, in July 2024 alone, budget revenues amounted to UAH 1.4 billion, which is 3.5 times more than in July 2023.
An open conflict in this market erupted at the end of last year. In November 2023, the All-Ukrainian Gambling Council openly opposed bill No. 10101, authored by Daniil Getmantsev, to regulate the gambling business. This speech contains the essence of the conflict. “The bill provides for the establishment of deadlines for issuing licenses to lottery companies for 10 years (for gambling companies - license renewal annually) ... the number of distribution sites) If this bill is adopted, lottery operators will be able to carry out four types of activities in parallel (organization of lotteries, online casinos, halls gambling machines, bookmaking activities), but they will pay only for one thing - organizing lotteries. 18.76 million UAH per year) is almost 6 times less than, for example, a bookmaker’s license (120.6 million UAH per year). mandatory prevention of gambling addiction and identification of the age of players, etc.
Later, events occurred that had a significant impact on the market. In particular, the decision of the President and the Government to limit the negative consequences of gambling.
In May 2024, it became known that a new draft law on gambling regulation was being prepared. According to the people’s deputy from “Voice” Zheleznyak, “the legalization of the gambling business in Ukraine took place “in one place,” so now the Verkhovna Rada is working on an improved law to regulate this industry.” “A lot of things came out as problems. Starting with advertising - which is de jure prohibited, de facto you see it all over Kyiv, and not only Kyiv - and ending with the online monitoring system, which is written on paper, but still does not exist in practice,” Zheleznyak noted .
Work on the bill continues. Probably, the struggle between the lottery and gambling lobbies has moved from the media columns to the offices, and this is associated with a certain information silence around the bill. The silence that big money loves. A new version of the bill and, probably, a new round of struggle should be expected after parliament returns to session work.
International tobacco companies against illegal cigarette manufacturers
There are five international tobacco companies in Ukraine. Each of them is a large taxpayer. In contrast to them, there are 5 clandestine factories operating in Ukraine that produce cigarettes. In 2024, the Bureau of Economic Security spent a month conducting raids on illegal cigarette factories.
According to BEB estimates, 20 billion hryvnia passes past the budget through the activities of these industries. International tobacco companies do not make big announcements and rarely give interviews. They are trying to resolve the issue quietly through the embassies of their countries and with the help of the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM). In conversations with off-records, representatives of AMSNAM report that the volume of shadow production of cigarettes in Ukraine is about 1 billion US dollars. And they add that the searches have not yet brought much results. So, everyone knows where shadow producers are located, what they produce and for whom. But there's nothing to grab onto.
Hemostatic
This product helps stop massive blood loss when limbs are wounded and saves the lives of many soldiers. Since the full-scale invasion, this market has been measured in hundreds of millions of hryvnias per year. The cost of Ukrainian samples is about 500 UAH, and the cost of American analogues is three times higher. Each fighter must have at least two tourniquets in his first aid kit. The need for the Defense Forces alone is about 2 million units, not counting the first aid kit of the State Emergency Service, enterprises, schools and other potential enemy targets.
There are two leading manufacturers of turnstiles in Ukraine. One of them, “Sich”, appeared in 2014. After 02/24/2022, Sich acquired a competitor, Dnepr, which, as the media reported, in a few months created and improved its hemostatic tourniquet, received several international certificates and entered the NATO manufacturer database. In 2023, the “Dnieper Kills” campaign was launched on several pages on social networks. The campaign against Dnepr and the improved TQ Dnipro gen2 had two characteristic features: no video evidence or simply eyewitness accounts, and the participation of exclusively civilians in the reports. The campaign reached its peak when TQ Dnipro gen2 won the National Guard tender for 100 thousand turnstiles. The head of the Sich then accused the leadership of the National Guard of corruption.
Internet provider market
Just the other day, an open conflict broke out between the Internet Association of Ukraine, on the one hand, and the American Chamber of Commerce, on the other. The stumbling block was the National Revenue Strategy of Ukraine, namely support for the idea of prohibiting enterprises from using the simplified taxation system. “The American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine’s prescriptions for Ukraine run counter to the positive experience of the American economy, which is largely based on strong government support for small businesses. The adoption of these recipes, according to InAU, will destroy the constancy of Ukrainian networks, which have so far managed to withstand the insane pressure of war,” the Internet Association said in a statement. This organization unites small companies providing Internet providing services. The association also appealed to the President of Ukraine with a request to “stop the campaign to destroy small domestic telecom businesses.”
The Internet Association's statement was preceded by a letter from the American Chamber of Commerce supporting restrictions on businesses using the simplified tax system. The essence of this position is that the possibility of using simplified taxation creates discrimination for companies paying taxes as legal entities, and not as a collection of individual entrepreneurs. Speaking on air at the National Telethon, AMSNAM President Andrei Gunder said that “in a country at war, everyone must pay taxes. The one who works finances the warring. We must fight the shadow together, since these are taxes that the Ukrainian budget does not receive, and which are necessary to finance the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Businesses that do not pay taxes must come out of the shadows, and the state must ensure a level playing field for everyone.”
This conflict may extend beyond Internet provisioning. It reflects the tension formed between legal entities with traditional accounting and businesses, which, in minimizing tax obligations, rely on registering part of their own activities through individual entrepreneurs.
