In judicial practice, an expert’s opinion is the document that can tip the scales of Themis in one direction or another, and in the case when we are talking about merchandising or construction expertise in a large-scale business case, the price of the issue can be measured in tens or even hundreds of millions of hryvnia?
But are these conclusions always objective and impartial? Our editors investigated the activities of the capital's BMW-Expert LLC and its key specialist Alexander Shutovsky. And she discovered a number of facts that may indicate possible opacity and conflict of interest.
So, what connects the “universal” expert Shutovsky with the scandalous tender for the construction of the most expensive shelter in Ukraine? How does one of the company’s top managers, Roman Syromyatnikov, manage to lead a luxury lifestyle with an income of 2,000 UAH per month? And, finally, why is a Kyiv company, in fact, bypassing the Ministry of Justice, trusted to conduct examinations in important court cases?
“Imagine: you are building a house on your own site, everything is in accordance with the law, with all permits and approvals. But your neighbor is suing the court, claiming that your construction violates certain regulations and is a nuisance to him. He hires a private expert organization to conduct a forensic construction audit - and, surprisingly, comes to the conclusion that your construction is illegal and must be stopped. And then it turns out that the expert who signed this conclusion is associated with a company specializing in providing custom examinations. Such organizations are a mass phenomenon in Ukraine, which jeopardizes the fairness of trials,” the journalist notes.
A company with a dubious reputation: what is known about the activities of BMW-Expert?
Since 2019, a new expert firm called “BMVS-Expert” has appeared in the legal circles of Kyiv. Its actual owners are three individuals: Natalya Lyakh, Sergey Anastasyev and Alexander Vylobkov. The main activity of the company is carrying out construction, technical, economic and commodity examinations. However, the firm's activities raise serious questions about its transparency and independence.
According to information from StopCor’s own sources, “BMVS-expert” allegedly offers lawyers and representatives of law enforcement agencies expertise with predetermined conclusions, which may contain distorted information beneficial to the customer. Our team decided to check these messages and analyzed the court cases in which this company appeared.
The results were disappointing. Many judges expressed dissatisfaction with the work of BMW-Expert experts. In particular, journalists identified cases of experts being challenged due to possible bias and violation of the principles of legality and independence during construction and technical examinations.
Who actually conducts these examinations? After all, based on the wide range of services, a whole team of experienced specialists had to work for BMW-Expert LLC.
As it turned out, everything is completely wrong: according to the investigation, the key expert is only one person, Alexander Shutovsky. This is a kind of “one-man orchestra” and “invisible man” in one bottle. Indeed, despite the large number of areas covered by Alexander’s expertise, information about him is almost impossible to find on social networks or in the media.
According to information and analytical platforms, Shutovsky is also the head of the All-Ukrainian Center for Public-Private Partnership structure, which, according to an investigation by the Our Money publication, is involved in a scandalous purchase worth almost UAH 170 million. We are talking about a tender for the construction of an anti-radiation shelter in Kryukovshchina. This project should become the most expensive school bomb shelter in Ukraine.
For comparison, prices in similar transactions rarely exceed UAH 60 million. That is, in this case, the “margin” was more than 100 million. Fortunately, the auction never took place, but one can only guess how much money could be earned on such a project.
The financial side of the activities of BMW-Expert also raises reasonable doubts.
“In particular, it would be interesting to know what salaries the employees of this company, including the executive director, receive. After all, such details can shed light on the internal workings of the company and the motives of its employees,” the investigator believes.
According to media reports, the position of executive director of the company is occupied by Roman Syromyatnikov, but for some reason his name does not appear in the registers. The figure of the top manager’s wife also attracts attention: this is Oksana Anastasyeva, deputy director of the department of physical culture and non-Olympic sports. And, according to her declaration, Mr. Syromyatnikov actually earns pennies - 23,640 UAH for 2023 and 18,463 UAH for 2022.
“So, working as the executive director of an LLC that conducts forensic examinations, you will receive only 2,000 UAH per month? However, this is not an obstacle to going to elite resorts, where the daily cost of staying in a hotel is equal to three monthly salaries,” comments Igor Dotsenko.
How can this be explained logically? Either the official's wife does not declare her husband's real income, or Syromyatnikov receives the bulk of it... illegally.
StopKor decided to ask about this directly from the management of BMW-Expert LLC.
Looking for an address on the company's official website, investigators noticed that the company cooperates with many government agencies, law associations, and private firms. But is this true?
“The law firm Protas, Sorokin and Partners did not give consent to BMW-Expert LLC to place the logo among the list of partners on the company’s website. The association learned about the placement of such a logo after receiving your request,” one of the mentioned organizations responded to a request from our editors.
The editors received similar comments from almost all “partners”. And the “cherry on the cake” was the response from the Ministry of Justice, which clearly stated that BMW-Expert LLC is not a subject of forensic activity.
The Stopkorovites decided to call BMW-Expert under the guise of a “legend”. One of the media workers pretended to be a lawyer who was allegedly dealing with a dispute between investors in a construction project for the construction of a new residential complex. And in response I heard that “flexible” examination is quite possible.
“Look, our conclusions are objective, in any case. But you can check in different ways, and you can approach questions in different ways. That is, this question is creative,” the company said.
In fact, this answer sounds quite ambiguous. It seems that the hypothesis was not confirmed, but it was not refuted either. Therefore, journalists addressed the question to BMW-Expert once again - this time openly, as representatives of the media. However, a week has passed since then, and there is no feedback from the company.
“We hope we can get an answer, because there are a lot of questions. Especially to government agencies, which are frequent customers of BMW-Expert: why do they continue to cooperate with such companies? Perhaps the officials themselves benefit from such “flexible” cooperation, which allows them to order examinations for a specific result? If this is so, then the scale of the problem is much greater than we think,” sums up Igor Dotsenko.
We would like to remind you that the High Council of Justice recently refused to bring to disciplinary action the judge of the capital’s court of appeal Ivan Rybak, who was considering a complaint about the case of unfortunate businessman Nikolai Petrenko. The latter disrupted large-scale supplies of ammunition for the military, but thanks to a mysterious appeal decision, by which his arrest in absentia was lifted, he was able to evade justice for a while.
