A dispute has intensified in Ukraine over IDS Ukraine, a company that produces several of the country’s best-known bottled water brands. According to The Guardian, the conflict centres on the 34% stake held by the Georgian-origin Patarkatsishvili family and efforts by the Ukrainian authorities to take control of the business.
The newspaper says IDS Ukraine’s assets were frozen in 2022 because 49% of the company belonged to Russian investors, including Mikhail Fridman, founder of Alfa-Group. Ukraine’s Asset Recovery and Management Agency was then tasked with finding an independent manager for the company.
The Guardian reports that the Government of Georgia is also among IDS Ukraine’s minority shareholders. Yaroslava Maksymenko, head of the Ukrainian agency, told the newspaper that the agency had repeatedly run into legal and bureaucratic obstacles, including attempts by shareholders to retain control over the assets.
Maksymenko said New World Value Fund Limited, the vehicle through which the Patarkatsishvili family invested in IDS Ukraine, had made unfounded allegations about supposed illegal actions by agency employees. She described those claims as “disinformation”.
At the same time, Maksymenko said the agency was concerned about possible money laundering and asset stripping if the company remained under its current management. However, The Guardian noted that no evidence of such violations has been presented so far.
A separate court case is under way at Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court. According to the report, shareholders are challenging attempts to nationalise part of IDS Ukraine’s assets or the entire company. Some Ukrainian officials regard the company as a strategic asset in wartime.
A representative of the Patarkatsishvili family told The Guardian that the family has consistently supported Ukraine since 2022. He also argued that the family is being treated unfairly and said it would turn to international courts if justice cannot be secured in Ukrainian courts.
The family’s position is that the asset should not be confiscated from shareholders who are not under sanctions, have not been charged and are not under suspicion. It says it is defending that position in all relevant proceedings before Ukrainian courts and state bodies.
For its part, an IDS Ukraine representative said no competent Ukrainian state authority, including the State Tax Service, had found any evidence of money laundering, unlawful fund transfers or similar financial violations by the company. The company also said it was unaware of any investigation or inspection linked to such allegations.
