NABU criticizes fourth closure of Rotterdam Plus case by prosecutor

Ukraine’s National Anticorruption Bureau (NABU)
reported on May 21 that prosecutor Denys Demkiv decided to close the Rotterdam
Plus case on May 20. This was the fourth time that prosecutors have closed the
case since August 2020. The NABU stated that the latest decision was made
without consultations with NABU detectives and outside the prosecutor’s working
hours, which “questions its objectivity.”  Demkiv reportedly refused to
hear the case in the presence of the acting head of the Specialized
Anticorruption Prosecution Office (SAP) and he ignored the position of his
colleague.

The NABU promised to appeal against the decision to the
acting SAP head, again declaring that the final decision on the case should be
made by a court. Three previous attempts to close the case, initiated by
prosecutor Vitaliy Ponomarenko, were successfully appealed.

The Rotterdam Plus approach to calculate the
forecasted wholesale electricity price was introduced for May 2016 – June 2019,
based upon which the forecasted power price for coal-fired plants was
calculated taking into account the full cost of coal as if it had been imported
from the ports of Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp, while in fact most of the coal
was supplied to plants from local mines over this period. According to earlier
NABU reports, the approach generated UAH 39 bln losses for power consumers. The
DTEK Group of Rinat Akhmetov (DTEKUA) was among the initiators, key
beneficiaries, and fiercest advocates of the validity of such an approach.

Alexander Paraschiy: The fourth
attempt to close the case and avoid it going to court, now by the new
prosecutor, is not a coincidence. Either prosecutors indeed see little
prospects of the case in a court hearing, or there is strong political will to
close it. Both of these reasons confirm our assessment that the chances for
NABU to reach a tangible result in the Rotterdam Plus case look very low.