The number of corporate raids in Ukraine has
consistently grown each year since the EuroMaidan revolt of 2014, according to
statistics published on July 3 by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.
There were 414 corporate raids reported in 2017, compared to 234 raids reported
in 2014. “As we see from the presented data, less than 1% of cases are
submitted to court, while the majority are closed owing to the absence of a
criminal offense. Law enforcement doesn’t much like economic cases and tries to
avoid their investigation,” said lawyer Maksym Lazarev, as reported by the
epravda.com.ua news site. He added that the real statistics could be far worse,
considering that many complaints do not even lead to a criminal case being
filed.
Zenon Zawada: These statistics are merely the latest evidence of how President Poroshenko,
and his two prime ministers, have failed to reform Ukraine’s decrepit judiciary
and law enforcement in a meaningful way that helps business, particularly
foreign investors. As a result, Ukraine remains among the least attractive
countries in the civilized world for investment. Unfortunately, we don’t see
that changing much after next year’s elections.