On 2 October 2025, the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) hosted a roundtable titled “Asset Management: Comprehensive Solutions”, during which participants discussed the next steps in reforming the Agency’s operations and improving procedures for managing seized assets considering the provisions of Law of Ukraine No. 4503-IX.

The event was organized by Yuridichna Praktika newspaper, ARMA, and the Ukrainian Association of Corporate Advisors (UACA).

Participants included representatives of ARMA, the Office of the President of Ukraine, judges of the Supreme Court, representatives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP), the Office of the Prosecutor General and the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), officials from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, the State Property Fund of Ukraine, and JSC Prozorro.Sales, as well as representatives of Transparency International Ukraine and the Analytical Center “Institute of Legislative Ideas”.

The roundtable was moderated by Rustam Kolesnyk, Editor-in-Chief of Yuridichna Praktika.

Acting head of ARMA, Yaroslava Maksymenko, spoke about ARMA’s work during the “transition period” envisaged by Law No. 4503-IX. Ms. Maksymenko noted that ARMA currently manages assets totaling almost UAH 200 billion. These include vessels, real estate (including land plots), and valuables.

According to Ms. Maksymenko, the Register of Seized Assets holds 70,000 entries. To date, no comprehensive inventory of assets has been conducted.

“One of our primary tasks is to conduct an inventory of what ARMA holds. To perform valuation, to calculate how much revenue and what benefit these assets can bring to our state. We aim to make these assets work for the economy and defense capabilities of Ukraine,” — said Yaroslava Maksymenko.

Ms. Maksymenko also pointed out that over the past two months ARMA has increased the number of competitions for asset management by 52%. Asset managers have been entrusted with assets worth UAH 1 billion.

Moreover, Ms. Maksymenko said, in the near term, to implement the provisions of Law No. 4503-IX, ARMA must conduct an audit of its personnel and functions. At the same time, digitization of processes must be undertaken.

“The Register of Seized Assets should be user-friendly, information-rich, with identification of the seized object so that managers can understand exactly what they are taking into management,” — emphasized Yaroslava Maksymenko.

Ms. Maksymenko also discussed high-profile cases, including those related to Medvedchuk’s yacht and the “Morshinska” case, among others.

Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Semen Kryvonos, highly appreciated the assistance provided by ARMA specialists in the asset recovery process and expressed interest in further development of such interagency cooperation. He also commented on plans to strengthen certain areas: primarily automation of request handling and processing, building a system of rapid information exchange, and improving monitoring of assets that are seized and under management.

“We want to track what economic effect is occurring with each asset, how much revenue from the asset enters the budget,” said the NABU head.

The necessity of more active involvement of ARMA in the valuation of assets proposed to be seized was underscored by Viktor Dubovyk, Director General of the Directorate for Legal Policy of the Office of the President of Ukraine.

“ARMA should be engaged not only at the stage of transferring seized property to it, but also in other procedures provided by the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, to provide expert assessment of whether it is possible to manage the property effectively or not,” — said Mr. Dubovyk. This will prevent situations where property is seized and transferred to ARMA’s management but in fact is unusable or nonexistent.

Judge Vyacheslav Nastavny of the Cassation Criminal Court under the Supreme Court spoke about the impact of the new legislation on the development of judicial practice in the area of managing seized assets and judicial oversight.

Mr. Nastavny believes that for effective management of seized assets, ARMA must be a participant in judicial proceedings, but procedural law changes are needed to allow that.

Deputy Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) Mykola Kornelyuk noted productive cooperation with ARMA. According to him, NACP uses ARMA’s specialists to search for assets abroad. To date, ARMA has received about 100 such requests, some of which have already been processed.

“Importantly, in one and a half years there has been no data leakage on ARMA’s side, which we appreciate,” — emphasized Mr. Kornelyuk.

Also participating in the discussion of the roundtable’s agenda were Olena Vakulenko, Director of the Department of Sanctions Policy and Court Representation, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Tetyana Konovalova, Head of the Detectives Unit, State Bureau of Economic Security, Illia Mykhailov, Chair of the Supervisory Board of JSC Prozorro.Sales, strategy expert at NGO EU-LEAP, Oksana Rak, GR Director and Chief Operating Officer of JSC Prozorro.Sales, Serhii But, Deputy Director of Prozorro SE, Nataliia Shymko, Deputy Head of Department 09, Office of the Prosecutor General, Oleksandr Tyshchenko, representative of the Department of Property and Sanctions Policy, Ministry of Economy of Ukraine, Zoriana Hreskiv, Director of the Department for Sanctions Property and Property in Temporarily Occupied Territories, State Property Fund of Ukraine, Tetyana Khutor, Head of the Analytical Center “Institute of Legislative Ideas”, and Pavlo Demchuk, Senior Legal Adviser, Transparency International Ukraine.