“Rada has approved the law on the restart of NACP”. “The National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting has asked to revoke the license of NewsOne”. Among these and other news you will not see any mentioning of the fact that on this day two years ago the Assets Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) had for the first time received seized assets into management.  

Thus, this month ARMA celebrates two years of work de facto. A central executive body was established in Ukraine “from scratch”, which, no matter how long the seizure of assets lasts, preserves them and where possible multiplies their economic value. During this time, the Agency has received a tremendous experience in management and sale of vehicles, real estate, multifunctional objects, money, corporate rights and rights to claim, as well as operating businesses.

In terms of volume and diversity, the portfolio of assets we manage is arguably one of the largest in the world. When you visit the website of ARMA, you will find that it is worth over UAH 3.5 billion (plus over UAH 300 million in deposit accounts) and has over 1800 assets.

All described above is kind of a "comparative base" for building the motion trajectory of the future. Requirements to ARMA from the state, victims, creditors and society in general are steadily increasing; the Agency is responsible for improving the procedures for managing seized property and for implementing transparency wherever possible.

In September this year, ARMA introduced new rules on the submission of documents for the selection of managers. Now- only in electronic form using EDS. Those, wiling to manage the property can forget about the paper package and submitting it to the office of ARMA. Isn’t it easier now to correct errors in the documents submitted? Yes.

The Agency has also canceled the preauthorization of potential managers. From now on, there will be no competitive selections for authorized participants. Practice has shown that recognition of a company as capable in managing seized property without checking its capabilities has sometimes in practice led to risks and unnecessary administrative burden on ARMA. In future, we will return to the preauthorization of potential managers, but among the companies having demonstrated the effectiveness of property management in practice.

It was a brief retrospective. Now about our short-term plans on the evolution of the procedures for the seized property management.

From now on, ARMA will check the starting prices of the sale. We will buy the services of appraisers on our own to form the starting price of the lot when selling the seized property. In the nearest future, we will introduce the practice of mandatory review of all real estate and land appraisals prior to their sale. Currently, such services are paid for by the buyer, and this does not hit the State budget (in 2018 by UAH 7.5 million), but in the public opinion raises questions on the starting price of the lot.

Promotional campaign for the competitive selection of managers. We will introduce the practice of posting all announcements for the sale of seized property on the official website, Facebook and Twitter accounts of ARMA and in the national online media publications. A department responsible for marketing and promoting competitions for the selection of managers and sale of seized property will appear in the Agency shortly.

A new level of transparency and professionalism in the selection of managers. A separate tender committee will carry out the selection of managers of the seized property within a short time. By default, the rule of timely notification of the schedule of committee meetings and live-broadcast of its meetings will be applied, as well as the publicity of all presentations and commercial proposals of the competitive selection participants. Certainly, the selection will take longer, some meetings will be obstructed by the dissatisfied, some companies will refuse to participate in the competition because of this degree of openness, and it will clearly lead to additional administrative burden on ARMA. However, it is the price of business loyalty and public trust.

Additional responsibility of managers. The obligation of managers to publicly communicate their position on work matters to all the interested stakeholders will be included in the management agreements (current and new). Or to admit mistakes and terminate management contracts with the recovery of damages. If so, ARMA will have the right to terminate the contract and start a new competition. We are against the shameful practice of silencing the managers in critical situations and shifting media negativity to ARMA.

We promise to implement all of the abovementioned during October-November.

In addition to these tactical tasks, the Agency also has strategic goals: finalize the development of the State Register of Seized Assets, develop an online promotional platform for the selection of managers and sale of seized property, expand cooperation with international partners in search of property, change the order of sale of seized property debts ...

And the most important is to introduce amendments to the Special law on ARMA. The authors of the draft law, which became the specialized Law of ARMA, did not have a clear understanding of how the institute would work in practice. Currently, this tool works, but it naturally needs to be improved, since no system close to perfection has been such from the moment of creation, but became as a result of systematic improvement.

Amendments are needed in both the Law and bylaws.

All these amendments will make ARMA the model manager in finding and managing seized property. Therefore, we will attract quality asset managers and increase budget revenues from property management.

Anton Yanchuk, Head of the Asset Recovery and Management Agency