The specialized anti-corruption prosecutorʼs (SAP) office canceled the closure of the "Rotterdam+" case, which was decided by the Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine (SAC) the day before.
This was reported by the SAP press service.
"On September 22, 2022, the head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutorʼs Office Oleksandr Klymenko decided to cancel the decision to close the so-called "Rotterdam+" case as illegal and unfounded," the message reads.
At the same time, the head of the anti-corruption prosecutorʼs office completely changed the group of prosecutors in this case. The decision was made based on the results of the study of the case materials, the study of the conclusions of the prosecutors during the closing of this proceeding, and the results of the meeting with the participation of the prosecutors and detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), who conducted the investigation.
"The head of the SAP revealed numerous inconsistencies in the conclusions and arguments of the prosecutor during the closing of this case, the incompleteness of the investigation of the case materials by the prosecutor, the inconsistency of the prosecutorʼs conclusions with the actual circumstances of the criminal proceedings," the report says.
- The "Rotterdam+" formula has been used by the National Commission for Energy and Communal Services (NCECS) since April 2016. It set the tariff for thermal power plants based on the average price of coal at import parity for the last year. After that, electricity prices began to rise — the tariff in Ukraine was tied to the price of coal on the commodity exchanges of the Netherlands. In March 2017, NABU began to investigate the conspiracy during the implementation of the Rotterdam+ formula. In October 2018, NABU head Artem Sytnyk said that Ukrainians overpaid 15 billion hryvnias due to the unjustified use of this formula. Subsequently, the level of losses reached almost 19 billion.
- At the end of August 2019, it became known about the decision of the SAP to close the case against "Rotterdam+" on the basis of an examination, which allegedly did not reveal any losses. NABU stated that this decision contradicts the principles of the rule of law, the Court of Appeal confirmed the validity of the examination.
- NABU had problems with SAP because of their decision to close the case, and the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office refused to change the head of the group of prosecutors. The acting head of the SAP had to cancel the closure decision twice. On May 5, the Prosecutor General changed the head of the group of prosecutors in the "Rotterdam+" case.