Move to acquire Quinn Ukraine asset frustrated

A FRESH legal attempt in Ukraine has further complicated the efforts of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, (formerly Anglo Irish Bank), to seize a valuable shopping centre at one time owned by Seán Quinn’s family.

A hitherto unknown British Virgin Islands company called Lyndhurst Development Trading SA has submitted a claim for $45.2 million (€34.6 million) against Ukrainian company Univermag that owns the centre.

The judge who heard the application allowed a submission from a representative of the former director of Univermag, even though the director who replaced her was in court.

Also in court was a representative of Quinn Holdings Sweden AB, the majority shareholder in Univermag. A receiver was appointed to Quinn Holdings Sweden by the Swedish courts some months ago, at the request of IBRC, which holds charges on the company’s shares and a mortgage on the shopping mall.

Neither IBRC nor Quinn Holdings Sweden has had any dealings before with Lyndhurst Development Trading. They have no knowledge as to the ownership of the company. The Kiev courts may rule on the matter as early as today.

The shopping centre is one of a number of valuable properties in Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere which were bought as investments for the Quinn family and which were mortgaged against loans issued by Anglo Irish Bank.

However, the now-nationalised bank is having great difficulty seizing some of the properties. The centre may be worth up to €60 million and last year produced rent of $10.8 million.

In October the shareholders in Univermag replaced its director, Larisa Yanez Puga, with Rostislav Levinzon. But he has been blocked by security guards from gaining access to the company’s offices.

A series of court hearings purportedly taken by individual small shareholders delayed the official registration of Mr Levinzon’s appointment but that has now occurred and on Tuesday he said he was going to seek the aid of the Kiev police in gaining access to the Univermag offices.

However, on Wednesday evening the courts in Kiev were approached by parties representing Lyndhurst. Legal representatives of Mr Levinzon and of Quinn Holdings Sweden were also in attendance.

“It is unclear whether any debt exists or whether there is any evidence of its existence,” said Dmytro Marchukov, IBRC’s solicitor in Kiev.

“Judge Litvinova did not give the opportunity to examine the materials in the case to us or to the representative of the mall authorised by Rostislav Levinzon. Yet at the same time the judge allowed the representative of the dismissed management of the mall to submit a written acceptance of all the claims, signed by none other than the correctly dismissed director .”

Ms Yanez Puga ran the shopping centre and a business centre in Kiev for the Quinn family, but relinquished control of the latter some months ago to a representative of the bank.