The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has fined Vadym Novynskyy-affiliated company Madera Development for carrying out seven concentrations without obtaining a permit in the amount of 1.82m hryvnyas. This is reported by Komersant ukrainskyi
with reference to the press service of the committee.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) has completed consideration of the case on violation of legislation on protection of economic competition on the part of LLC “Madera Development”. The company carried out concentration without obtaining the necessary authorisation from the Committee’s bodies.
The investigation found that in December 2020, Madera Development LLC acquired assets in the form of seven single property complexes owned by Amstor LLC without prior authorisation from the AMCU. These assets provide leasing of commercial (retail) property in Ukraine.
The Antimonopoly Committee noted that under the legislation in effect at the time of the violation, such actions constitute a concentration, which requires prior authorisation from the Committee. The value indicators of the participants of the concentrations at the end of 2019 exceeded the thresholds defined by the Law of Ukraine “On Protection of Economic Competition”, which made it necessary to obtain such authorisation.
The AMCU recognised that Madera Development LLC carried out seven violations by acquiring these assets without proper authorisation. For this, the company was fined a total of UAH 1,820,000.
What is known about the company “Madera Development”
“Madera Development” until recently belonged to Igor Mazepa, the founder of Concorde Capital investment company.
In December 2020, it bought a number of shopping centres, land plots and retail equipment of the Amstor chain in Kremenchug, Zaporizhzhya, Mariupol, Melitopol, Kramatorsk, Berdyansk, Odessa for UAH 456 million.
Ukreximbank said at the time that the property was sold as part of the settlement of overdue credit debt of Amstor LLC for about UAH 2 billion in the process of bankruptcy of the debtor.
The media wrote that Igor Mazepa may be buying Amstor assets in the interests of Vadim Novinsky (earlier Madera Development LLC had already purchased Amstor’s shopping centre in Mariupol, as well as a transformer substation in Zaporizhzhya and three land plots in Poltava, Odessa and Mariupol).
On the eve of the AMCU’s decision, Concorde Capital announced the transfer of Amstor shopping centres to East Solution Group (ESG) to be managed by Vadym Novinsky’s Smart Holding Group.
In May-June 2023, the state arrested East Solution Group, Madera Development and dozens of other companies linked to Novinsky.
Smart-Holding considers such actions “lawlessness”. The company decided to sue Ukraine over the seizure of assets.
on 2 December 2023, the National Security and Defence Council imposed sanctions against Novinsky because of his involvement in a religious organisation affiliated with centres of influence in the Russian Federation. After that, it became known that he transferred his assets to a trust and stopped controlling the activities of the Smart-Holding investment and industrial group, but the Justice Ministry did not recognise the change of beneficiaries.