A Step Away from Interviews: Questions to ARMA Head Candidates

On May 30, the Commission for the Selection of the ARMA Head will start interviews with candidates. 

10 candidates expressed the desire to head the Agency. Among them are the heads of various branches of the ARMA, a senior detective of the NABU, a lawyer who applies for all possible competitions to law enforcement agencies, an employee of the Anti-Corruption Court, an ex-deputy head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, a head of the Anti-Raider Office of the Ministry of Justice, a former head of the department of the SPFU. 

Traditionally, before this stage of the competition for a leadership position in such an important anti-corruption body, Transparency International Ukraine analyzed all candidates. We had questions to potential heads of the National Agency — about their property and assets, ties with russia, conflict of interest, disciplinary cases and more. Read the material to find out about other questions to the candidates.

How will the interviews go?

In general, the communication of the Commission with candidates will take place within 5 days — from May 30 to June 8. During the interview with the candidates, the professional experience, knowledge, moral and business qualities of the participants of the competition and their views on possible future activities as the Head of the National Agency will be covered.

Unfortunately, at the moment, we do not know what criteria the commission will use to evaluate candidates. At the May 22 meeting, the commission members failed to approve the criteria for assessing applicants for compliance with the moral and business qualities that are necessary for the work of the ARMA Head.

The relevant assessment rules were developed by a commission member, lawyer Dmytro Ostapenko. TI Ukraine was positive about such an initiative because we have previously emphasized the need for this step. Our organization is convinced that the approval of such criteria would allow for a quality assessment of the commission’s decision on the compliance of each of the candidates with the requirements of the ARMA Law. 

However, at the last meeting, the commission members noted that they would only rely on the developed criteria, but did not see the need to publish them and even more so to approve them.

“The ARMA competition has been going on for almost three years. However, the commission did not fully implement the best practices for evaluating candidates that had been used in competitions for positions of a similar level, for example, for the director of the NABU. We very much hope that during the interviews and when making the final decision, the members of the selection commission will be as objective, consistent, and reasonable as possible. And we, for our part, will closely monitor and analyze the course of this stage of the competition,” says Kateryna Ryzhenko, Deputy Director for Legal Affairs of Transparency International Ukraine.

What do we know about the candidates?

In total, 10 candidates have passed to the last stage. Transparency International Ukraine analyzed all available public information about them. Our experts tried to study the data, which could indicate the level of integrity of the applicants, as thoroughly as possible.

However, given that the access to the register of electronic declarations has been limited since the beginning of the war, and the selection commission decided not to publish the declarations submitted by the candidates, the data collected by us may not fully reflect the picture of the property status of the participants in the competition. 

For its part, the commission may have more information on this topic, so we hope to get a fuller picture of the compliance of candidates with the requirements during the interviews.

Artem Brintsov — Head of the Legal Support Department of the High Anti-Corruption Court. 

The scheduled time of the interview is May 30 at 4:00 p.m.

Brintsov began his career with the office of the Court Chamber for Economic Affairs of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. He also worked in the Economic Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court and as a part-time assistant of the Department of Agrarian, Land, and Environmental Law of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine.

The mother of the candidate, Nellia Brintsova, is one of the founders of the credit union “Poltava Region.” Among the founders of this organization is the former mayor of Poltava Oleksandr Mamai. On March 2, 2023, the HACC found him guilty of organizing the embezzlement of someone else’s property by abusing his official position on a large scale and organizing the introduction of deliberately false information into official documents.

Therefore, the selection commission should clarify the relationship of the candidate’s mother with Oleksandr Mamai, as well as whether this will affect the potential fulfillment by Brintsov of the powers of the ARMA head.

Viktor Dubovyk — director of the Department (head of the office) of the Anti-Raider Office of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.

The scheduled time of the interview is May 30 at 6:00 p.m.

In the past, Dubovyk headed the Department of Consideration of Appeals and Complaints in State Registration of the Department of Notary and State Registration of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, as well as was engaged in legal practice. He was an advisor to the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Serhii Arbuzov, from April 3, 2013, to February 27, 2014. Let us remind you that the NABU suspects Arbuzov of abusing his official position as part of a criminal organization, which led to the embezzlement of UAH 220 mln.

Moreover, from 2012 to 2014, Dubovyk was an assistant to MP Roman Romaniuk from the UDAR party of Vitali Klitschko.

The media report that Viktor Dubovyk began to build a vertical with close people in the Anti-Raider Office. He is also associated with Andrii Dovbenko, whom the HACC assigned an interim measure in the form of detention on suspicion of organizing the embezzlement of UAH 485 mln of property seized and handed over to ARMA management.

Therefore, the candidate should explain the selection commission his connections with the UDAR political party of Vitali Klitschko, Serhii Arbuzov, and Andrii Dovbenko, as well as his personnel policy in the Anti-Raider Office of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.

In addition, it is interesting to know the position of the candidate regarding Viktor Yanukovych, during whose time Serhii Arbuzov was in power, and persons affiliated with the fugitive president.

Olena Duma — Deputy Head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration (the last position indicated, which she held until September 30, 2021). 

The scheduled time of the interview is June 1 at 4:00 p.m.

Olena Duma at one time was the director of the Executive Directorate of the Social Insurance Fund and held senior positions in the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the State Registration Service of Ukraine, and the Kyiv city branch of the Social Insurance Fund. She worked in the patronage service, in particular, she was an assistant to an MP and carried out legal practice.

The candidate contested her dismissal from the Social Insurance Fund. The lawsuit was denied, but this decision was overturned by the appeal. Interestingly, the reason for the dismissal of Olena Duma was her failure to comply with labor legislation and compulsory state social insurance for the period from January 31, 2020, to April 22, 2020. 

For example, the court decision refers to attempts to illegally pay material assistance to resolve social and domestic issues, appoint acting directors and deputy directors of the executive directorate of the Fund, non-payment of bonuses to employees of the executive directorate of the Fund and heads of working bodies of the executive directorate of the Fund, and other violations.

Moreover, in the interview, the candidate stated that the ARMA did not use other legal mechanisms that could provide it with the opportunity to be granted foreign assets into management (in particular, with the right to sell). They, in the opinion of Duma, are based on the ability of the ARMA to protect its property right to manage the seized assets in civil or economic (arbitration) courts — Ukrainian and foreign. However, the candidate did not dwell upon the sources of funding for such legal mechanisms.

On September 2, 2020, the NACP drew up a protocol on Duma for the fact that she submitted the annual declaration for 2018 untimely and without valid reasons, that is, she committed an offense related to corruption, provided for by Article 172-6, part 1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses. But the court closed the proceedings because during the consideration of the case, it turned out that the candidate missed the deadline for filing a declaration due to her son’s illness. 

Olena Duma also submitted documents for participation in the competition for the NABU director, but did not attend the testing stage.

It would be interesting to receive an explanation from this candidate about the violations that the temporary commission of the Social Insurance Fund established in her activities. In addition, it is unclear from public information what Duma is doing today, and what are her sources of income.

Dmytro Zhoravovych — Acting Head of the ARMA.

The scheduled time of the interview is June 1, 6:00 p.m.

Currently, Zhoravovych temporarily serves as the ARMA Head. Since July 2019, he has been the head of the Agency’s North-Eastern Interregional Territorial Department. Prior to working in the civil service, he was engaged in private legal practice.

According to the Kharkiv Anti-Corruption Center, the candidate was the head of the religious community in the Myrrhophores Church of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Kharkiv until November 2017. The construction of this church was financed by Oleksandr Shishkin (ex-senator of the rf, who voted for the annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and a member of United Russia) and Pavel Fuchs (a Ukrainian-russian entrepreneur who has common interests in the real estate sector in moscow). At the previous interview, Zhoravovych explained that Shishkin did not finance the construction of the church, it was built at the expense of the Pharmaceutical Company Health, People’s Health, and other enterprises and individuals. However, it is these companies, according to media reports, that have russian roots.

The interim head of the Agency is systematically criticized in the media. Criticism reached such a level that ideas to eliminate the ARMA were voiced. Many of them were based on a non-transparent sale of property and the challenges posed by the management of seized assets of russian origin. For example, the register of seized assets is not available to the public. The Agency’s leadership says that access to it is limited to comply with the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers and the recommendations of the SSU.

In the previous interview for the position of the ARMA Head, Zhoravovych explained that the Agency practiced appealing to law enforcement agencies to analyze the candidates of the managers of the seized assets. However, in response to the appeal of Transparency International Ukraine, the ARMA reported that such actions were not provided for by the current legislation and related exclusively to the “property of trade unions” at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office. 

Another issue regarding the work of Zhoravovych in his current position is the adoption of standard-setting initiatives of the ARMA. In the previous interview, the candidate indicated that his long-term goals were to improve the legislative framework for the work of the Agency. However, none of the four draft laws on amendments to the ARMA Law (they are registered under numbers 4483, 6144, 6201, 6233) were adopted. These documents were developed precisely during the work of Zhoravovych as the head of the ARMA, and it was he who needed to advocate for their adoption. 

The candidate also reported that the Agency developed administrative regulations for the performance of the key functions of the ARMA. However, they have not been published, which does not allow the public to assess the completeness and quality of these regulations, as well as the extent to which the actions of ARMA officials comply with local regulations of the institution.

Therefore, the selection commission needs to clarify whether the candidate has any ties with the Health Corporation or persons holding positions in it. The candidate should also explain his responses to criticism and the measures taken to correct errors in the work with seized assets, for example, regarding the opening of the register of seized assets because the SSU only recommended restricting access to it, and how he plans to defend the position of the ARMA in the government and before parliamentarians so that they adopt appropriate laws to strengthen the performance of the Agency’s functions. 

The media also has information on the application of a disciplinary sanction against the head of the territorial unit of the ARMA Stanislav Seriohin, whose details will be described below. Therefore, a question arises whether Zhoravovych considers these actions as pressure on another participant in the competition for the ARMA head, and how he can explain the decision.

Volodymyr Pavlenko — serviceman; until September 27, 2021, he held the position of Deputy Head of the ARMA, lawyer.

The scheduled time of the interview is June 2 at 4:00 p.m.

Prior to joining the Agency, he worked as an advisor to the ARMA head, as well as was engaged in private legal practice.

According to the declaration for 2018, in 2016, Pavlenko acquired ownership of a garden house with an area of 33 sq. m. in Kyiv and a land plot under it with an area of 585 sq. m. At the end of 2021, before his dismissal from the ARMA, the candidate declared another right to use the same property, which belonged to Olena Dashkovska. At the same time, the income from the alienation of property to Dashkovska was not declared. Therefore, the commission should clarify this situation with the candidate.

The candidate is a suspect in a USD 400,000 embezzlement case. According to the NABU, during August-December 2020, Pavlenko, together with the Acting Head of the ARMA Vitalii Syhydyn and the head of the Asset Management Department Vakhtang Bochorishvili, in collusion with lawyers and Ihor Korol, allegedly seized funds that had been transferred to the management of the ARMA. In the previous interview, the candidate explained that in this case, ARMA employees were misled regarding the validity of the decision of the investigating judge of the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv. 

The candidate contested his dismissal from the ARMA in court. The Administrative Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Kyiv Administrative Court to recognize Pavlenko’s dismissal as illegal and reinstate him in office.

The selection commission should ask about the state of consideration of criminal proceedings in which Pavlenko was notified of suspicion and to clarify what needs to be improved to offset the risks that have become the basis for notifying him with suspicion.  

In June 2021, Pavlenko was the victim of an attack — someone shot him with a firearm, and the candidate was injured. It is necessary to clarify with the candidate what the attempt on his life was connected with, and whether this concerned Pavlenko’s work in the ARMA.

Andrii Potiomkin — lawyer; until January 2, 2020, he held the position of head of the legal department of the ARMA. 

The scheduled time of the interview is June 2 at 6:00 p.m.

For much of his career, Potiomkin worked in the judiciary, later in legal practice. Subsequently, he began to work in the Ministry of Justice — during the time of Minister Pavlo Petrenko. He started working in the ARMA in March 2017.

The managing partner of LCF Law Group, where the candidate worked as a legal advisor, is Anna Ohrenchuk. She is the wife of Andrii Dovbenko, who was assigned an interim measure by the HACC in the form of detention on suspicion of organizing the embezzlement of property seized and transferred to the ARMA worth UAH 485 mln.

There was also information in the media about the conflict between the ARMA and former employees Andrii Potiomkin and Vitalii Riznyk because of their ties with former Minister of Justice Pavlo Petrenko and lawyer Andrii Dovbenko. Those publications also indicate that it was at the request of Potiomkin that the State Bureau of Investigation opened a case against the acting head Vitalii Syhydyn about the so-called “Honcharuk films,” allegedly it was Syhydyn who secretly recorded the conversation in the prime-minister’s office.

In the previous interview, the candidate did not explain his role in the sale of three land plots in Odesa Oblast, acquired for the construction of shopping centers of the Auchan network, 2,600 tons of medium and fine sand in Kyiv Oblast, more than 4,500 tons of carbamide, grain, cereals, and oilseeds. All this property was managed by the ARMA at that time, and Potiomkin himself worked as the head of the legal department of the Agency. His colleagues, Anton Yanchuk, former ARMA head, and Vitalii Riznyk, former head of the Asset Management Department of the ARMA Staff,were served with notices of suspicion of abuse of power and embezzlement of more than UAH 426 mln.

The candidate was dismissed from the ARMA because of a negative assessment of his activities as a civil servant. By the decision of the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal, Potiomkin’s dismissal was recognized as legitimate, but this decision is still being contested in the court of cassation.

It is unknown what the candidate is doing now.

In the previous interview, the candidate provided the members of the selection commission a notice of suspicion in one of the criminal cases against ARMA officials as evidence that he was not involved in the incriminated acts. However, a question arises about the source of the notice of suspicion to another person if this document is procedural in nature, and the candidate himself seems not to be involved in this criminal proceedings.

Moreover, the selection commission should receive a comment from Andrii Potiomkin regarding his acquaintance with Andrii Dovbenko, as well as whether the latter influenced his work in the ARMA. It is also worth finding out whether the candidate initiated criminal proceedings regarding “Honcharuk films,” and in general, what financial resources he uses for a living.

Considering what Potiomkin stated about his active cooperation with the investigation into the cases of ARMA employees, it is worth further clarifying with the candidate whether he had information about the alleged acts of corruption of other employees of the Agency during the period when he headed the legal direction of the institution. And if so, whether he appealed to law enforcement agencies with the relevant notices. The statement of the candidate about the illegality of his dismissal from the ARMA also needs to be clarified because court decisions established the opposite.

Serhii Rokun — senior detective, Head of the First Detectives Department of the Second Detectives Division of the Main Detectives Division of the NABU.

The scheduled time of the interview is June 7 at 4:00 p.m.

He used to work in the Main Department of the State Fiscal Service in Rivne Oblast and the State Tax Inspectorate in Rivne.

The candidate appealed to the court for the protection of honor, dignity, and business reputation regarding the publications that referred to alleged nepotism within appointments to positions in the NABU.

Therefore, the candidate should explain the circumstances of the appeal with this claim, as well as express his assessment of the information disseminated in the publications.

Oleksandr Rudenko — lawyer, Head of the Lawyer’s Union RO LEX.

The scheduled time of the interview is June 7 at 6:00 p.m.

The candidate is a lawyer, head of the Lawyer’s Union RO LEX. Most of his career, he was engaged in private law practice. 

In 2020, he applied for various positions four times: the head of the SAPO, the Director of the BES, the Director of the SBI, and the Head of the ARMA. He also participated in the competition for the NABU Director. Prior to this, the candidate did not hold any position in the civil service. 

During the interview for the position of the NABU Director in February 2023, the commission had the most questions about Rudenko’s loan of UAH 1.7 mln, which he was granted by the Portal Bank in 2019. According to the resume, Rudenko himself is a member of the supervisory board of this bank, so the commission asked whether there was a conflict of interest in this case. According to Rudenko, this issue was decided by the bank’s board, while the supervisory board, and he personally, had nothing to do with this.

The selection commission should assess in detail the circumstances of the candidate receiving the assets. In addition, it is worth clarifying why Rudenko decided to apply for such different in their functions positions.

Stanislav Seriohin — Head of the Central-Western Interregional Territorial Office of the ARMA.

The scheduled time of the interview is June 8 at 4:00 p.m.

He used to work as a legal advisor and head of the legal department of SE Ukrainian Special Systems, as well as the head of the legal department of the enterprise with foreign capital Indrayani Overseas. Seriohin is also a lawyer.

The candidate’s brother, Oleksandr, became a member of the NACP in August 2017. The public had serious complaints about the activities of his team, which eventually led to the reboot of the Agency.

In social networks, information was spread that Stanislav Seriohin drove macaroon pastries to local cafés, which his wife made, during working hours.

Therefore, the candidate should be asked about his family ties in the context of possible influence on the exercise of his powers as the Head of the ARMA. And also to clarify the circumstances of bringing Seriohin to disciplinary responsibility, and whether he contested the disciplinary sanctions.

Kostiantyn Tkachenko — lawyer; until October 21, 2022, he headed the Department of Corporate Rights Management of the SPFU.

The scheduled time of the interview is June 8 at 6:00 p.m.

He began his career as an assistant prosecutor of the Podilskyi district of Kyiv, later worked in private companies until his appointment as deputy director of the Corporate Governance Department of the SPFU in February 2021. 

Kostiantyn Tkachenko was recommended for the position of a member of the HQCJ by the selection commission. He was also a candidate to the Economic Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court (he was the 17th of the 16 recommended). At the same time, the candidate’s wife, Olena Tkachenko, was an assistant to MP Roman Babii, and his brother’s wife, Nataliia Blazhivska, was a judge of the Administrative Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court.

Therefore, the candidate should disclose the reasons for his dismissal from the SPFU, as well as his relationship with Roman Babii. In addition, it is worth finding out how Tkachenko will make his choice if he is appointed both the Head of the ARMA and a member of the HQCJ.