A Ukrainian lawyer and an economist, who defied a prohibition on the disposal of eastern European property linked to bankrupt former billionaire Seán Quinn, are to be fined £15,000 each, a judge in Belfast ruled yesterday.
Oleksandr Serpokrylov and Dmytro Zaitsev will be sentenced to four weeks in jail if they do not pay the financial penalty within six months, Mr Justice McCloskey warned.
He imposed the punishment on the two men for acting in contempt of a court injunction over a $45 million shopping centre in Kiev.
The two men, as representatives of a mysterious offshore company, were held to have flagrantly and deliberately ignored an order against any transfer of debts surrounding the mall.
Lawyers for the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation issued contempt proceedings against Mr Serpokrylov and Mr Zaitsev, and the British Virgin Islands-registered Lyndhurst Development Trading, for allegedly flouting the injunction imposed in December 2011. As part of the wider legal battle, Lyndhurst Development Trading was prohibited from enforcing any loan agreement.
It was alleged that the injunction was ignored later the same day at a hearing in Kiev. Lyndhurst secured judgment from the Ukrainian court that it was entitled to enforce a $45 million debt against the firm which owns the mall, Univermag.
Mr Justice McCloskey has already found that the property debt was transferred from one of Mr Quinn’s companies to put it beyond the reach of IRBC. All disputed transactions were declared null and void, with control returned to the former Anglo Irish Bank.
With Mr Serpokrylov and Mr Zaitsev remaining outside the European Union, questions were raised about the enforceability of any outcome.
Their barrister warned against an order that may simply “beat the air”.
Ruling yesterday, Mr Justice McCloskey described the two men as “relatively minor players in the overall scheme” who had acted on their client’s instructions.
However he also pointed out how they had declined to disclose their income or assets and made no attempt to answer questions raised in the case.
Costs were awarded against all three respondents.
