The forum was organised by the Ukrainian Advocates' Association. The event was held today, April 26, with the participation of representatives of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, as well as heads of top Ukrainian law firms.
Olena Duma spoke about the work of Ukrainian anti-corruption agencies in the context of wartime using the example of ARMA and presented successful cases of the agency's work to the audience.
Currently, she said, inspections have been conducted and are ongoing to assess the effectiveness of control over managers, which not only eradicate corruption risks but also bring more revenues to the budget.
Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) is doing this work, which can be seen clearly. Over the 30 years of independence, criminals have stolen, bankrupted, re-registered and moved a lot of property abroad, so the state must now have effective tools to return such property to Ukraine or sell it in the public interest.
"According to the analysis, in 2020, the amount of all assets that were withdrawn abroad was almost USD 300 billion," said Olena Duma.
She emphasised that with the adoption of ARMA's legislative initiatives (some of which are already in force, some are still in the works), state mechanisms for finding, tracing and managing seized assets, even those located outside Ukraine, are already being improved. So, in the near future, ARMA will be reporting on more high-profile cases that will lead to the filling of the state budget to enhance Ukrainian defence capabilities.
As a reminder, in the framework of the Second Anti-Corruption Forum, Head of the ARMA Olena Duma and President of the Ukrainian Advocates' Association Olha Dmytrieva signed a Memorandum of Understanding in the field of protection a seized property owners' rights
Earlier, on April 23, Draft Law No. 10397 was generally supported by 299 MPs, and from now on, ARMA will be able to purchase Military Bonds using seized foreign currency funds. In addition, the Verkhovna Rada Anti-Corruption Policy Committee recommended MPs to adopt as a basis the draft law No. 11009 of 12.02.2024.
Also in April, ARMA reported the seizure of over $18 million from the accounts of Friedman and Aven's offshore companies.
