In just one year, the absolutely viable, financially sound state enterprise “Ivkovtsy Experimental Farm” in the Chernihiv region was turned into a permanent debtor. It's been three years since it's been driven into bankruptcy.
Since July 2020, the agricultural enterprise has been managed by people associated with MP Pavel Khalimon. The arbitration manager appointed by the court in December 2021, instead of paying off debts to creditors and effectively managing property, contributed to the accumulation of debts. An interesting fact is that the debts have grown to a private enterprise, the ultimate beneficiary of which is Pavel Khalimon’s friend Sergei Selyutin - the Transvit private enterprise.
The company makes claims for 70 million hryvnia, which it was allegedly owed by a once successful state-owned enterprise. In fact, creditors say that the bankruptcy is artificial, and the final goal of Halimon and Co. is to take possession of the property and five thousand hectares of fertile black soil belonging to the farm. Moreover, starting from July 2020, grain was exported from the enterprise without registration to an unknown direction. The land worked, the farm functioned, but the debts only grew. Lenders considered that the amount of damage from crops stolen from the fields alone in recent years could exceed one billion hryvnia.
In this regard, in March last year, the Prilutsk District Prosecutor's Office opened criminal proceedings under Part 4 of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
And recently, a meeting of creditors was held on the territory of the State Enterprise “OH “Ivkovtsy”, which decided to remove the property manager appointed by the court from duties, remove the current director from office and contact law enforcement officers with a statement about committing another criminal offense.
Associate Professor of Agricultural Schemes
Luxury cars, sports motorcycles, an estate in Pechersk, an apartment in the USA and considerable savings in the bank.
If you believe the declaration of Pavel Khalimon, then the main source of his income is the salary of the People's Deputy of Ukraine - 474,316 hryvnia per year. Where does the people's deputy get the money for a luxurious life? Even if we add to the salary in parliament the 22 thousand hryvnias per year that Pavel Khalimon receives at the Kiev Agrarian University of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences as an associate professor of the department of agricultural economics and management, the amount will not be enough even for the BMW R1250GS Adventure motorcycle he declared.
Rumor has it that Pavel Khalimon began to earn really big money since he entered into “schemes” with the lands of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences. And this happened almost immediately after the recently unremarkable guy from Pryluky received the mandate of confidence as a people’s deputy of Ukraine. Already in July 2020, a loud raider scandal swept across Ukraine at the state enterprise Experimental Farm Ivkovtsy IMP named after. V.M.Craft NAAN.” Then, right on the farm fields, clashes occurred between GP workers and police special forces, who used brute force against people. Equipment from one of the private enterprises entered the enterprise, and the crops sown in the fields of the enterprise were collected and taken away in an unknown direction.
The peasants accused People's Deputy Pavel Khalimon and his partner, Prilutsk agrarian Sergei Selyutin, whose company provided security for the state-owned enterprise, of raiding. Later, another scandal swept across Ukraine with the names Selyutin and Khalimon - they demanded a 40 million hryvnia “kickback” from the agrarian from Priluchina Oleg Dmitrenko for the right to harvest. Pavel Khalimon was then able to be documented on record, proceedings were opened against him, but very soon the case was “buried.”
The following year, the situation with the export of crops repeated, and in December 2021, according to the statement of the private enterprise "Transvit", whose owner is Sergei Selyutin, bankruptcy proceedings were opened for the state-owned enterprise. Interesting fact: almost two days before the opening of bankruptcy proceedings, the private enterprise “Transvit” enters into a deal with the state enterprise “OH “Ivkovtsy” for the purchase of herbicides. In addition to the fact that the contracts are clearly not profitable in terms of amounts, the question also arises about the advisability of purchasing herbicides in December. Someone was clearly interested in increasing accounts payable, and this someone filed a lawsuit two days after signing the agreement. This is how, in just a year, the director of the State Enterprise from Pavel Khalimon managed to turn a successful farm into a debtor and bankrupt.
The arbitration manager was managing new debts
What happens next? And then the court appoints a property manager, or an arbitration manager, who, logically, must bring the farm out of the bankruptcy stage, organize the management of the enterprise and pay off debts to creditors. All this has not happened over the past two years. For more than two years, the arbitration manager Vyacheslav Poda did not carry out any measures to identify and preserve the debtor’s property, nor an inventory, nor, most importantly, the creation of a committee of creditors to control the bankruptcy process of a state-owned enterprise.
The representative of the creditor JLLC "Batkivshchyna" Konstantin Podgorny accuses the property manager of criminal inaction in the interests of specific individuals.
“According to the law, all contracts exceeding two percent of the book value of the farm, namely more than two million hryvnia, must go through an arbitration manager. We see the opposite: debts are growing, the property manager is inactive. For more than two years, he was not even able to collect creditors, which the court ordered him to do,” says a representative of the creditor.
Arbitration manager Vyacheslav Poda explains that he supposedly has no right to interfere in the economic activities of the enterprise, because, in his opinion, this is illegal.
“The manager cannot interfere in the production process, for example, explain to a milkmaid how to milk a cow or an agronomist what seeding rate to set, but he must control the contracts that the farm enters into,” says Podgorny.
It is strange that, according to Vyacheslav Poda, the manager of the property did not demand documents from the director of the state enterprise regarding the signing of contracts and agreements, but for some reason the demands for increasing the debt from the private enterprise “Transvit” are included in the court.
How much did the arbitration manager get involved?
According to the materials in the bankruptcy case, the Economic Court of the Chernihiv region established: “Starting from July 31, 2020 to the present, a number of business agreements were concluded between the private enterprise “Transvit” and the state enterprise “OH “Ivkovtsy”, under which the private enterprise “Transvit” provided services on appropriate terms agricultural services to the debtor and supplied products. The private enterprise "Transvit" fulfilled its obligations under the relevant agreements, but in turn, the state enterprise "OH "Ivkovtsy" did not pay funds for their fulfillment within a certain period of time, which led to the formation of a debt."
It is interesting that, according to the concluded agreements, the amount of the principal debt is two million 650 thousand hryvnia. And the penalty for the period of delay from November 23, 2021 to January 13, 2022 is 66 million 721.92 hryvnia. Another almost 16 thousand hryvnia were charged for inflation and 530 thousand for the fine. The total amount of creditor claims of the private enterprise "Transvit" to the state enterprise "OH "Ivkovtsy" is more than seventy million hryvnia.
Stolen for a billion
In fact, instead of paying off debts to creditors, the court-appointed property manager allowed the debt to grow further. In addition, before his eyes, grain was exported from state fields to an unknown direction for two years in a row. Based on a letter from the senior investigator of the Prilutsky RIN of the GUNP in the Chernigov region, police captain Andrey Filozop, a systematic theft of the debtor’s property was established.
Law enforcement officers established that officials of the State Enterprise “OH Ivkovtsy” MIP named after V.M. Crafts NAAN” during 2022-2023, while cultivating the land of a state-owned enterprise, embezzled funds. As a result, on March 1, 2023, the Prilutsk District Prosecutor’s Office initiated criminal proceedings No. 42023272210000057 under Part 4 of Art. 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
In total, the amount of damage from crops stolen from the fields alone in recent years can exceed one billion hryvnia. And this is under martial law, when in order to survive, Ukraine needs finances.
At the same time, the corrupt leadership of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences appoints “pocket” directors who, instead of filling the state treasury, fill the pockets of individual people’s deputies, and bring successful enterprises to the stage of bankruptcy.
The black soils of “Ivkovtsy” have given birth to new dollar millionaires leading a luxurious life, but at the same time the state risks losing a once successful economy, which is deliberately leading to collapse.
The first step to save the state enterprise “OH “Ivkovtsy” was taken not by the leadership of NAAN, but by the main creditors, who decided at their meeting to remove the “pocket” arbitration manager and director of the state enterprise, who led the farm into a debt hole. And since the property manager did not comply with the court decision and did not collect all the creditors, the main creditors turned to law enforcement officers in order to initiate the opening of criminal proceedings against him for failure to comply with the court ruling. If the case goes to court, the arbitration manager can pay off the debts he missed at the expense of his own property.
In turn, People’s Deputy Pavel Khalimon does not particularly hide his connections with the owner of the private enterprise “Transvit”, who issues 70 million hryvnia in debt obligations to “Ivkovtsy”. Right in his declaration, the people's deputy indicated that Sergei Selyutin provided him with two million hryvnia of repayable financial assistance. It’s not enough for him to buy a luxurious estate on the Pechersk Hills.
