NBU admits Poroshenko's reputation not impeccable due to sanctions – lawyers
At a meeting on Monday, the Committee on Supervision and Regulation of Bank Activities of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) recognized the reputation of the fifth president of Ukraine, leader of the opposition European Solidarity and the majority shareholder of the International Investment Bank (IIB) Petro Poroshenko as not impeccable in connection with the sanctions of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) imposed against him by the decree of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claims Poroshenko’s lawyer Ilia Novikov.
“The NBU, on its own initiative, decided to consider the question of whether Poroshenko is a ‘person with impeccable reputation,’ which is a technical term and means the possibility for the NBU to take certain measures to establish control over banking institutions in which he is a shareholder,” Novikov said at a briefing.
According to him, neither Poroshenko’s lawyers nor deputies were allowed to attend this meeting, which is a violation of the law, while Poroshenko himself is participating in the Congress of the European People’s Party in Spain.
“Without Poroshenko’s representatives, violating everything possible, they made this decision. It is obvious that as soon as we receive it in printed form, we will appeal it,” Novikov said.
Poroshenko’s lawyer Ihor Golovan claims that such actions by the NBU are aimed at destroying IIB - “an effective, profitable bank” and violate the interests of not only its majority shareholder, but also tens of thousands of the bank’s clients.
The Interfax-Ukraine agency has not yet been able to obtain a comment from the National Bank or a confirmation or denial of the information about the decision of the Committee on Supervision and Regulation of Banking Activities.
On April 11, Poroshenko said that the NBU plans to recognize him as “a person with faulty business reputation” by using the presidential decree on sanctions against him from February 12, 2025. “The law does not provide for such a mechanism. This is an internal national bank interpretation. But it is precisely this that will allow you to achieve your goal: to block and try to seize the shares of the bank (IIB) that belong to me,” the leader of the European Solidarity claims.
Before this, head of the National Bank, Andriy Pyshny, denied the accusations from Poroshenko and the political force he leads that the inspection of the IIB and the operations of the Poroshenko Charitable Foundation and the public organization Sprava Hromad, whose accounts are located in this bank, is political persecution of the opposition and the fulfillment of government orders.
“We deny any political subtext in the actions of the National Bank,” the NBU said on its website on the same day.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of February 1 of this year, IIB ranked 26th in terms of total assets (UAH 14.37 billion) among 61 banks in the country. It accounts for 0.19% of the assets in the banking system.