State registrars “playing along” with raiders

Complainee: Ministry of Justice of Ukraine (MinJust)
Сomplaint in brief: The Business Ombudsman Council received a complaint from a transportation company from Odesa. The company complained of having been raided by a financial company, which tried to seize the company’s real estate by engaging “black” state registrars. According to the complainant, both state registrars from Zaporizhia and Donetsk regions violated the territoriality principle by registering property location of which did not coincide with their place of work. The company tried to challenge illegal actions of state registrars on its own through the Collegium of the Ministry of Justice for considering complaints against decisions, actions or inaction of the state registrar (the MinJust Collegium). However, the MinJust Collegium was in no hurry to draw conclusions. Following the hearing, the complainant neither received a copy of the Collegium’s opinion, nor official information to be posted on the Ministry of Justice’s official website. The company called the MinJust hotline, however, received no support other than promises. It turned out later that the MinJust Collegium had postponed consideration of the transportation company’s complaint to other dates. The inaction of the Ministry of Justice was a trigger for the complainant to ask the BOC to take up his case immediately.
Actions taken: After reviewing the case file, the investigator found it substantiated. The Council recommended that the MinJust Collegium review the transportation company’s case with the participation of the complainant and the Council’s representative and estimate controversial registration actions of the registrars.
Result achieved: Following facilitation by the Council, the case was resolved quickly during the second meeting of the MinJust Collegium on the complainant’s issue. The MinJust partially satisfied the transportation company’s complaint and cancelled illegal decisions made by the state registrar from Zaporizhia region. The case was successfully closed.