Even where news about reports is published on city council websites, it does not always function as a tool of accountability. The materials are hard to find, written in bureaucratic language, and lack a short summary for residents or an explanation of how the authorities’ decisions affect community life in practice. The messaging often boils down to “the report has taken place” and fails to answer the questions residents actually care about: what was accomplished, what problems remain unresolved, how much money was spent, and what the authorities plan to do next.

The analysis of city council communications on official websites and social media also showed that on their own platforms, local authorities tend to report more on “everyday” matters, while systemic change goes unmentioned. The largest share of posts concerned repairs, improvements, or crisis response — for example, the aftermath of attacks. The most active reporting of this kind was in Zaporizhzhia and Khmelnytskyi. This approach helps residents stay informed about the city’s day-to-day affairs, but it does not give a full picture of what the authorities have achieved. Alongside coverage of current events, local self-government bodies should pay more attention to communicating strategic decisions, long-term projects, and how these shape the community’s development. 

City councils also rarely include direct quotes from officials in their own communications (apart from the mayor’s major annual reports). For example, of more than 80 posts about the work of municipal enterprises across all cities in the sample, only two contained direct quotes. As a result, reporting often comes across as impersonal — residents cannot see who makes decisions and who is accountable for the results.

Among the good practices in how city councils communicate reports, analysts noted Lviv and Zaporizhzhia, where the mayors’ major annual reports were broken down by topic and published by area — culture, education, international cooperation, healthcare, and so on — as well as Khmelnytskyi, where posts about the substance of the report outnumbered those simply noting that it had happened.

Overall, mayors’ reports to their communities have considerable untapped potential. Also, local self-government bodies should broaden their pool of in-house spokespeople responsible for specific areas — people who can regularly and substantively explain their decisions and results to the community. This applies not only to the heads of departments, divisions, and municipal enterprises, but also to the council members to whom residents have delegated their votes.

Public discussion of reports took place mainly in local media, on Telegram channels, and in Facebook groups. Media outlets were generally more active in covering reporting than the local authorities were in communicating it, and a significant share of communication was passive. The fewest mentions of reporting by local self-government bodies in local media were recorded in Khmelnytskyi and Kropyvnytskyi. In those two cities, however, the authorities did initiate coverage in the media — whereas in Odesa, every mention of reporting identified was passive: information appeared not through the city council’s efforts, but through discussion by residents and journalists. 

On social media, the most active discussion of reporting was in Lviv. There, of more than 260 posts analyzed, nearly 90% related to Andrii Sadovyi’s report. In this case, however, there were certain signs of artificially boosted negative messaging. Reporting by Odesa’s authorities, by contrast, generated only three social media posts — two of which were questions from engaged residents about whether the Mobilization Training Department had reported, or planned to report, on its work. 

“The impression is that city councils treat reporting as a formality and have no systematic approach to communicating with the community. But a public report is an opportunity to win support: to explain to the community what has been done, what resources were used, which decisions were difficult, what didn’t work, and how the authorities plan to fix it. Trust isn’t built by a single report — it is earned through systematic, honest, and clear communication,” notes Olesia Koval, Transparent Cities Program Manager at Transparency International Ukraine.

The Transparent Cities program recommends that city councils introduce an internal standard for communicating reports — so that every important report comes not just with documents, but with short explanations for residents.

City councils should also make reporting easy to find on their websites, with dedicated pages for the reports of the mayor, departments, divisions, municipal enterprises, council members, and budget and program reports. Documents should be available for download, search, and reuse.

Reporting should not end the moment the mayor stops speaking. It should be supported by quality communication before, during, and after the event: announcements, live broadcasts, clear summaries, visualization of key results, answers to residents’ questions, engagement with the media, and explanation of the authorities’ next decisions.

Particular attention should go to difficult topics. If a report includes unfinished tasks, criticism, delays, or hard decisions, it is better to explain them openly. Silence creates space for distrust and negative interpretation.

Accountability in a European city means publishing reports, holding meetings with the community, and proactively communicating the results delivered by city officials and structural divisions. Above all, it is the best way to show the community that the authorities remember: decisions are made on behalf of the people, with public money, and with direct effect on the life of the city. 

Background: why Rodovid Bank fell into crisis

Rodovid Bank grew rapidly in 2005–2006 — and fell just as rapidly during the 2008 crisis. As of early 2009, it was the 19th largest Ukrainian bank by assets. But behind that outward scale lay a far less rosy picture: roughly 80% of corporate loans were unrecoverable, and the share of non-performing loans to individuals reached 47%. In other words, the bank had effectively ceased to exist as a functioning financial institution — its fall was only a matter of time.

Investigators never fully established who siphoned off assets in the pre-crisis period, or when. The bank’s owners hid behind a chain of shell companies. 

One well-known episode illustrates the logic of what was happening, even though it does not directly relate to this criminal case. In 2008, Firtash’s UkrGazEnergo placed roughly half a billion hryvnias on deposit at 9% per annum. A year later, three days before temporary administration was introduced, the rate was raised to 48% — three times the market rate. Later, once the bank was already state-owned, the Firtash structure received UAH 284 million in accrued interest. A court subsequently declared the agreement void, but no one was ever held criminally liable for this episode.

Nationalization and another round of plunder

Rodovid’s bankruptcy was among the most high-profile of all such cases at the time. The government of Yulia Tymoshenko decided to rescue it, recapitalizing the bank with an injection of UAH 8.4 billion — almost $1 billion at the time. As a result of this “rescue” operation, 99.97% of the bank’s shares passed into state ownership. But the plunder continued even after the bank became state-owned, as we describe in more detail below.

Lines outside Rodovid Bank during its collapse

Formally, the bank was taken over by temporary administrator Serhii Shcherbyna. But in practice, according to investigators, everything was run by Oleksandr Shepelev — a former MP of the fifth and sixth convocations and, in the past, a member of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc faction, which he left in 2007 to join the Party of Regions faction. He is the one charged with organizing the embezzlement scheme. Yehorenko was an accessory in it — the man with signing authority who knew the bank’s internal paperwork.

Oleksandr Shepelev

At the time of these events, Shepelev was an MP and held positions on the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Finance and Banking, as well as on the privatization commission. According to investigators, he declared himself the bank’s unofficial overseer on behalf of the Cabinet of Ministers, took a separate office at the premises on Sahaidachnoho Street, and began running the institution with no signing authority but through verbal instructions. He installed his own people in key positions.

The fictitious documents were signed by Dmytro Yehorenko, who before temporary administration was introduced had served as acting chairman of the board and, from 2009, as full chairman without the “acting” prefix. He did not organize the scheme or draw up the documents — the papers were simply brought to him ready-made. But he signed them, aware that there were no grounds for transferring the funds. The court qualified his role as aiding and abetting and noted separately that Yehorenko gained no personal financial benefit.

According to the verdict, the scheme was simple. Shepelev’s wife, Halyna, acquired ownership of an administrative building in central Kyiv through a relative linked to the same circle, who had purchased it from EBRF CJSC, a company controlled by that same group. Next came a fictitious lease: the bank supposedly rented this building. Contracts, acceptance certificates, and supplementary agreements were all backdated, marked February 2009 — that is, before temporary administration was introduced — and some documents were dated as far back as 2006. The aim was to disguise the crime as a business relationship that had supposedly existed long before the bank became state-owned.

The building on Sahaidachnoho Street near the funicular in Kyiv that once housed Rodovid Bank’s head office 

On the basis of these documents, between September 2009 and March 2010 Shcherbyna made nine payments totaling almost UAH 18.5 million to Halyna Shepeleva’s account. More than UAH 17 million of this was withdrawn in cash through the bank’s teller and used by the couple as they saw fit.

The court established that the bank did not actually use the building. No relocation, no furniture, no utility payments — nothing to confirm a genuine tenancy. In April 2010, an audit commission inspected the premises and found only renovation work underway.

In 2014, Ekonomichna Pravda described Rodovid’s collapse as “the dirtiest banking scam of the independence era” and asked: where did the money go, and would anyone be held to account? There are now some answers.

The losses in the Yehorenko case, confirmed by forensic economic examination, amount to almost UAH 18.5 million. No civil claim for compensation was filed, since a separate ruling in a civil case had already ordered UAH 18 million recovered from Halyna Shepeleva in the bank’s favor.

What the court decided in the Yehorenko case

The HACC received the indictment on January 31, 2024, and within a month and a half moved to consideration on the merits, ruling to hold special judicial proceedings in absentia against Yehorenko, who had been wanted since 2018 and, as of February 7, 2019, under arrest in absentia imposed by the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv. 

The wanted notice for Dmytro Yehorenko on the Interior Ministry website

Once the case reached trial, however, Yehorenko did express a wish to take part in the hearings remotely. 

Over two years, the court examined thousands of pages of documents, questioned witnesses, and ruled on dozens of defense motions. He did not plead guilty. His reasoning ran that, as the owner of 34% of the bank’s authorized capital who had served first as acting chairman of the board and then as chairman, he knew the institution well from the inside. Yehorenko insisted that the building was genuinely leased and that some of the bank’s units had moved in there — security, programmers, and the regional directorate. He denied signing any fictitious documents, claimed the bank had no “overseer” at all, and said Shepelev had no workplace there and only occasionally dropped by to see Shcherbyna. In the end, the court rejected all these arguments.

On April 9, 2026, a panel of HACC judges found Yehorenko guilty under two articles: aiding and abetting the misappropriation of property through abuse of official position (Article 27(5) and Article 191(5) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and forgery in office by prior conspiracy (Article 28(2) and Article 366(1) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The court sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment with confiscation of property and immediately released him from serving it. The reason: the statute of limitations on the more serious offense expired on March 4, 2025, and on the forgery charge back in 2013. 

Notably, Yehorenko himself had objected to closing the proceedings on limitation grounds and had insisted on a trial on the merits. 

Yehorenko’s defense filed an appeal against the trial court’s verdict. On the basis of these appeals, on May 22, 2026, the HACC Appeals Chamber opened appellate proceedings. 

Where the other defendants are now

The Rodovid case is not a single verdict over UAH 18 million siphoned off through a fake lease, but a sprawling network of proceedings moving at different speeds. The total losses inflicted on the bank after nationalization run into the hundreds of millions of hryvnias, and the central episode still awaits resolution.

The bank’s temporary administrator, Serhii Shcherbyna, entered a plea agreement back in 2017 — as the perpetrator of the same crime in which Yehorenko was found to be an accessory. By available accounts, as of 2025 he is in prison.

Halyna Shepeleva

Halyna Shepeleva was convicted by a verdict of the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv on December 18, 2024, and sentenced to 7 years’ imprisonment, a 3-year ban on holding certain positions, and confiscation of property. She did not plead guilty, claiming she had signed documents without going into the details because she was busy with the family rather than the bank’s affairs. The verdict has not yet taken legal effect — the defense has filed an appeal. 

The main defendant in the case remains Oleksandr Shepelev, a former member of both the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Party of Regions. Investigators regard him as the architect of the entire scheme, which contains far more episodes than the ones Yehorenko was tried for. The NABU and the SAPO accuse Shepelev of organizing a scheme to misappropriate over UAH 300 million of Rodovid’s funds. According to investigators, this money went to pay for fictitious services from a firm close to Shepelev, and another UAH 40 million, as Shcherbyna stated, went to renovate a building leased from Shepelev himself. Shcherbyna, the bank’s temporary administrator, supposedly had to certify the allocation of this money with his signature under pressure, but on the record he later called those decisions criminal.

The indictment over the UAH 300 million that Shepelev is charged with embezzling reached the HACC in January 2022. Consideration on the merits began that October and continues to this day. 

But Shepelev’s record extends far beyond Rodovid. In 2013 he was detained in Budapest: Ukraine suspected him of organizing the murders of an Interior Ministry colonel and a banker, the attempted murder of another banker, and the embezzlement of state funds earmarked for the rescue of the recently nationalized bank. In March 2014 he was extradited to Ukraine and taken into custody. Soon afterward, Shepelev faked an illness and was transferred to an emergency hospital, from which he escaped that July by bribing a guard. He went into hiding in Russia, where he was granted refuge in exchange for testimony against a number of Ukrainian politicians and cooperation with the FSB — which became the basis for opening a high treason case against him. However, after a falling-out with Russian law enforcement over an attempted bribe, he returned to Ukraine, and in February 2018 he was detained near Kyiv carrying the ID of a lieutenant colonel of the “MGB” of the so-called “DPR.”

In 2020, the Desnianskyi District Court of Kyiv sentenced Shepelev to 7 years for escaping custody and bribing a guard. The court established that, while in custody at a Kyiv hospital, Shepelev passed money to the head guard three times — twice UAH 500 and once $100 — so that the guard would ignore his having a phone. On July 6, 2014, he left the hospital through the utility rooms and illegally crossed out of Ukraine. Shepelev did not plead guilty, claiming the entire prosecution was Yanukovych’s personal revenge — supposedly because Shepelev had gone against him. The Court of Appeal upheld the verdict.

In 2022, the Obolonskyi District Court of Kyiv, on top of the earlier verdict, sentenced Shepelev to 15 years for organizing the murder of Serhii Kyrychenko, chairman of the supervisory board of the Donetsk-based AvtoKrAZBank. According to the prosecution, Shepelev eliminated him as a competitor: he hired a hitman for $40,000, who stabbed the victim at least 14 times in the entrance hall of a building in Donetsk. This happened back in January 2003. The court partially granted the civil claim brought by the victim’s daughter for UAH 2.5 million in moral damages. The appeal largely upheld the verdict but credited his prior time in detention. The cassation court, in turn, also counted the sentence for escaping custody toward this term — and found that Shepelev had fully served his sentence for this murder. 

Beyond these two convictions, the Solomianskyi District Court of Kyiv is currently hearing another case involving Shepelev — over the contract killing of Roman Yerokhin, a colonel in the Interior Ministry’s organized crime directorate (UBOZ), in 2006. 

As of May 2026, the case of the “Rodovid millions” before the HACC is at the stage of examining evidence — the defense is currently presenting its materials. At a hearing on May 4, defense counsel tried to add to the case file the testimony of the bank’s temporary administrator, Serhii Shcherbyna, and other witnesses — testimony they had given in another criminal proceeding. The panel of judges denied the motion: if the defense wants these witnesses’ testimony, it can question them directly in this case. The defense lawyers agreed with the ruling. So, in the near future, the Shepelev case will likely see the questioning of witnesses and defendants from the Rodovid Bank case. 

Defense counsel also maintains that much of the evidence he has submitted points, in his view, to the political persecution of his client. The defense argues that the charges against Shepelev were fabricated because of the change of power after the Revolution of Dignity and his client’s political ties to the Yanukovych regime, against which he had supposedly turned. In effect, the defense is trying to portray Shepelev as a victim of political reprisals — despite the fact that he has several convictions for crimes unrelated to this case. 

Shepelev himself is currently in a pretrial detention facility. He takes part in hearings by videoconference. In the proceedings he communicates exclusively in Russian. 

Although the case has dragged on for years, Shepelev himself has done everything to give the court a chance to get through it in time — inadvertently extending the limitation periods through his own crimes. 

The Criminal Code of Ukraine provides that the statute of limitations is suspended if a person evades the investigation or the court. Shepelev fled Ukrainian law enforcement twice: first to Hungary and then, after he was handed over to Ukraine, once more — this time to Russia, and with yet another crime to his name. There he cooperated with hostile intelligence services, as well as with Russian gauleiters in the so-called “DPR.”

***

The running of the limitation period can also be interrupted if the defendant commits a new crime before the previous period expires. In that case, the period starts over from the commission of the latest crime. 

Shepelev “made use” of this too: after the Rodovid case began, he committed new serious crimes — escaping custody and bribing a guard. It is from the date of the escape, July 6, 2014, that the 15-year limitation period begins to run, expiring in July 2029. 

If a verdict in the case over the embezzlement of Rodovid’s funds is not handed down before that date, the case may be closed on limitation grounds. So Yehorenko’s fate — convicted, but walking free — is not yet what threatens Shepelev. But that depends on the court finishing the trial in time. 

The Rodovid case vividly illustrates the systemic problem of complex cases being investigated too slowly. Yehorenko received a verdict but served no punishment. Only a small fraction of the losses has been recovered for the state. Another defendant is still waiting for the court to rule on his case. Whether society’s demand for justice in this case will be satisfied remains an open question.

Brief conclusions and proposals

The draft new Civil Code of Ukraine represents an attempt to adapt private law to contemporary social challenges, particularly the development of digital technologies, electronic communications, and the circulation of information. However, certain provisions of the draft pose direct risks to access to information, freedom of speech, and the protection of public assets.

These provisions should be refined before the draft CC is considered in the second reading. We recommend that parliament:

• in Article 328, remove the possibility of removing, anonymizing, destroying, or deindexing information about a person from publicly available sources on the grounds that it is “outdated,” “incomplete,” or has “lost public interest”;
• clarify the provisions of Article 353 regarding the processing of data on a legal entity’s digital image without its consent in cases where such information is open under the law;
• reconsider the advisability of introducing good morals as a separate source for regulating civil relations, given the existence of already established and settled means of legal regulation (law, contract, custom);
• reconsider the advisability of restricting the state and territorial communities in reclaiming property from bona fide acquirers;
• supplement Article 367 with a restriction on reclaiming from a bona fide acquirer property obtained through the disposal of assets in respect of which a court decision has been issued applying the sanction provided for in Article 4(1)(1-1) of the Law of Ukraine on Sanctions.

The current situation 

In the area of access to information, the Civil Code of Ukraine primarily regulates the personal non-property rights of individuals and legal entities. Articles 200, 277, and 302 of the Civil Code define information as a distinct intangible good and enshrine a person’s right to information, as well as mechanisms for protection against the dissemination of false information. The Code grants every individual the right to protect their personal non-property rights against unlawful encroachment by others. If false information is disseminated about a person or members of their family, the individual has the right to a reply and to the refutation of such information. At the same time, current legislation does not establish a general obligation to remove or anonymize such information — except where a document is withdrawn by the legal entity that issued or adopted it. 

As for legal entities, the Civil Code likewise vests them with a number of personal non-property rights, in particular the right to the inviolability of business reputation, the privacy of correspondence, and information. However, the scope of such rights is narrower than that of individuals.

The Civil Code of Ukraine was formed at a time when digital platforms, search engines, large arrays of personal data, and the algorithmic processing of information did not yet play such a significant role in social life. As a result, the Code essentially contains no separate regulation of digital privacy, the right to control one’s own digital data, mechanisms for deindexing information in search engines, or guarantees regarding the processing of personal data. The existing rules on the protection of private life and information are general in nature and are largely designed for traditional forms of disseminating information rather than the modern digital environment. 

Issues of transparency and openness of information are regulated largely not by the Civil Code itself but by special legislation — in particular, the Laws of Ukraine on Information, on Public Electronic Registers, on State Registration of Legal Entities, Individual Entrepreneurs, and Civic Formations, and on Corruption Prevention. These and other acts define the openness regimes for state registers, access to information about individuals and legal entities, the use of budget funds, declarations, court decisions, and the like. If information is defined by law as open and subject to publication, it may be collected, analyzed, and used, provided this does not violate special restrictions on personal data or restricted-access information. 

As regards the disposal of state and municipal property, the current Civil Code sets out the general principles of the right of ownership, the legal status of state and municipal property, and the powers of the state and territorial communities as participants in civil relations. In particular, Articles 316–327 of the Civil Code enshrine the content of the right of ownership, the forms of ownership, and the specifics of exercising the right of state and municipal ownership. The Code proceeds from the premise that the state and territorial communities exercise the right of ownership through authorized bodies, and that the disposal of public assets must be carried out within the bounds of the law and in accordance with the public interest. 

The Code pays particular attention to protecting the right of ownership. Article 386 guarantees that the state ensures equal protection of the rights of all owners. At the same time, Article 388, which concerns an owner’s right to reclaim property from a bona fide acquirer, reveals an imbalance between protecting private property and the interests of the state and territorial communities in preserving public assets. Thus, the state or communities cannot reclaim their immovable property from a bona fide acquirer (a person who did not know and could not have known about the unlawful origin of the asset) if more than ten years have passed since the registration of the first acquirer’s ownership of the property, or since the date the property was transferred into their ownership (if it is not subject to registration).

What is proposed

The draft CC substantially expands the existing restrictions on the use of data and information about an individual, particularly in the digital environment. Unlike the current Code, which mostly operates with traditional categories of privacy and the protection of private life, the draft seeks to account for the development of social networks, messengers, and artificial intelligence technologies.

In particular, with a person’s consent, the use of their image and voice is permitted (Article 318), as is the creation of digital content that realistically imitates the image, voice, behavior, or other distinctive features of a specific individual, including through the use of artificial intelligence technologies (Article 321). Moreover, the use of content created with artificial intelligence technologies must be accompanied by clear and visible labeling of its synthetic origin. 

A novelty is the introduction of the rights of individuals and legal entities to a digital image and a digital personal space (digital privacy). A digital image encompasses any forms of representing and distinguishing a person in the digital environment — such as accounts, profiles, personal pages, personal data, avatars, and digital profiles, including in social networks and e-government systems, as well as images, video recordings, audio recordings, electronic signatures and seals, and the like. Copying, using, and processing data on a person’s digital image is possible only with their consent. 

In addition, the draft establishes restrictions on the publication and dissemination of personal digital information — in particular, email messages, telephone conversations and messages, electronic text and voice messages, images, and audio and video communication in messengers and social networks (Article 333), as well as personal notes in electronic form (Article 332) — permitting such use only with the person’s consent. 

Another novelty of the draft CC is the right to be forgotten. Under it, any individual may demand the removal, anonymization, or destruction of information about themselves from publicly available sources, and the cessation of the provision of links (deindexing) to such information under their name, if the information is false, outdated, incomplete, processed unlawfully, or has lost public interest, and its further processing harms that person’s personal rights. 

However, an individual’s right to be forgotten cannot be applied where the personal data: 

• is necessary for exercising the right to freedom of thought and speech and the free expression of one’s views and beliefs; 
• has archival and/or cultural value or forms part of historical, scientific, or statistical research; 
• relates to an official, civil servant, or other public figure and is connected with the performance of their official, professional, or public functions;
• is necessary for protecting the health of the public and of individuals; 
• is necessary for the data controller to fulfill a legally defined obligation to process such personal data. 

As for the protection of state and municipal property, the draft CC retains and elaborates the existing restriction on the ability of the state or territorial communities to recover property that has unlawfully left their ownership if ten years have passed since a bona fide acquirer obtained it.

In addition, the draft retains a special approach to determining when the limitation period begins to run in disputes over reclaiming property transferred from state or municipal into private ownership. Such a period is proposed to be calculated from the date of state registration of the first acquirer’s ownership, or from the moment the property is transferred to them if it is not subject to state registration.

Risks

1. The right to be forgotten

The problem with the right-to-be-forgotten concept proposed in Article 328 of the draft CC lies primarily in the fact that certain criteria for its application are formulated too broadly and are evaluative in nature. This concerns categories such as “incomplete information,” “outdated information,” or “information that has lost public interest,” the content of which has no clear statutory limits and may be interpreted arbitrarily.

In the absence of clear criteria for balancing a person’s right to privacy against the public interest in access to information, there is a risk that the right to be forgotten could become a tool for concealing socially important information. In particular, such mechanisms could potentially be used by bad-faith actors to delete, deindex, or restrict access to information in the media, journalistic investigations, and open data portals.

Formally, the right to be forgotten will not be absolute and will not provide for the automatic deletion of information; however, the proposed safeguards may prove insufficient. In particular, a person may lose the status of an official, civil servant, or public figure, but the public interest in information about corruption, reputational scandals, or other facts concerning that person will persist. 

As a result, journalists, open data aggregators, and even social network users will be forced to prove in court the existence of public interest in information about former officials, corrupt actors, or other persons. This will have a chilling effect on freedom of speech, as the media and the public will avoid disseminating or retaining such information for fear of litigation. 

A separate risk is that case law on such provisions will develop gradually and may be unpredictable. Until it becomes settled, the existence of such a rule may be used as a tool of pressure against journalists, civil society organizations, whistleblowers, analytical platforms, and other actors who work with open data. 

Clearly, the so-called “right to be forgotten” is an attempt by the authors to reproduce in the draft CC the right to erasure (“the right to be forgotten”) provided for in EU Regulation 2016/679 on the protection of personal data (the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR). However, in implementing this approach, they did not take into account that, under Article 17(3)(d) of the relevant EU Regulation, the use of personal data to achieve public-interest purposes is a limitation on the erasure of data rather than a ground for such a request. 

Therefore, in preparing for the second reading, it is advisable to revise the provisions of Article 328 and remove the possibility of removing, anonymizing, destroying, or deindexing information about a person from publicly available sources on the grounds that it is “outdated,” “incomplete,” or has “lost public interest,” since such criteria are evaluative and create risks of restricting access to socially important information. Instead, the right to be forgotten should be limited to cases where the information about a person is false or has been processed unlawfully. 

2. The digital privacy of legal entities

Articles 345 and 353 of the draft CC vest legal entities with rights to a digital image and a digital personal space (digital privacy). A digital image encompasses any forms of representation in the digital environment — such as accounts, profiles, personal pages, and digital profiles, including in social networks and e-government systems, as well as electronic signatures, seals, and other forms of individualization in the digital environment. Copying, using, and processing data on a legal entity’s digital image is possible only with its consent. 

The proposed regulation gives rise to contradictions regarding its relationship with the principles of openness of public information, the functioning of state registers, journalistic activity, and the activity of services that aggregate open data. In particular, the broad and evaluative definition of a digital image could potentially cover a significant body of information that is already open under the law — including information about beneficial owners, data on participation in public procurement, court proceedings, and the use of budget funds. There is a risk that such rules could be used to restrict access to socially important information or create additional legal risks for journalists, civil society organizations, and analytical platforms that work with open data.

Moreover, the concept of digital privacy is by its nature primarily linked to protecting the private life and personal data of an individual. For legal entities, by contrast, there may be separate digital non-property rights related to protecting business reputation, trade secrets, electronic communications, or means of electronic identification. For this reason, the draft’s effective extension of the full construct of “digital privacy” to legal entities appears questionable. 

In this context, it can be considered well-founded to clarify the provisions of Article 353 regarding the processing of data on a legal entity’s digital image without obtaining its consent in cases where such information is open under the law. 

3. Applying good morals as a source for regulating civil relations

Alongside law, contract, and custom, the draft CC singles out another means of regulating private relations — good morals, by which it proposes to mean the body of moral norms and principles, standards of ethical conduct, and generally accepted notions of proper behavior that are established in society.

Good morals would directly affect key areas of private relations. In particular, the content of a contract may not contradict good morals; otherwise, a court may declare the contract invalid. An individual will be able to freely choose the forms and ways of expressing their individuality, determine their own conduct, and make decisions only in ways and within limits that, among other things, do not contradict good morals. In addition, when exercising the right of ownership and performing the related obligations, an owner will also be required to comply with the requirements of good morals. 

Introducing such a category effectively means that the regulation of civil relations may be influenced not only by statutory rules but also by rather subjective ideas about morality, ethics, or “proper” behavior. At the same time, the use of such a broad and indeterminate category raises concerns from the standpoint of the principle of legal certainty, since the boundaries of the concept of “good morals” remain unclear and may differ substantially depending on the social context, subjective perception, or case law. In the absence of clear criteria for its application, this may also create risks of a selective or discriminatory approach in assessing the conduct of participants in civil-law relations. 

In view of this, it is advisable to reconsider the appropriateness of applying good morals as a separate source for regulating civil relations, given the existence of already established and settled means of legal regulation — law, contract, and custom.

4. The specifics of reclaiming state and municipal property from a bona fide acquirer

The draft Civil Code enshrines the existing restriction on the ability of the state or territorial communities to recover property that has unlawfully left their ownership if 10 years have passed since its sale to a bona fide acquirer. This restriction effectively legalizes the unlawful alienation of state or community property through fraudulent schemes and abuses by officials. 

Setting time limits for reclaiming property may lead the state and the relevant territorial communities to lose assets that unlawfully left their ownership through fraudulent schemes, abuse of office by officials, or other unlawful acts, as it will limit the ability to recover them, even through the courts. Moreover, the provided list of exceptions to which the restrictions do not apply (critical infrastructure facilities, cultural heritage, and the nature reserve fund) is too narrow and does not account for other objects — for example, forestry land or coastal land around rivers and water bodies, which traditionally attract heightened interest from developers.

Even greater harm to the protection of the property interests of the state and communities comes from the change in the approach to calculating when the limitation period begins to run for filing a court claim to reclaim property. Instead of applying the general approach — under which the limitation period begins on the day the person learned or could have learned of the violation of their right — the start of this period is set at the date of state registration of ownership or of the transfer of the property to the bona fide acquirer. And since a party’s filing of a statement with the court on the expiry of the limitation period is grounds for dismissing the claim, in practice the state or community will have not 10 but only 3 years to recover unlawfully alienated property.

The change in the approach to when the limitation period begins to run in this category of cases may also contribute to a rise in the number of unlawful schemes for alienating others’ property in the future, since after ownership is re-registered, time will work against the lawful owner. It is effectively presumed that the state or community is aware of the change in ownership of the property from the moment the corresponding entry is made in the state register. This approach does not account for the real circumstances in which violations are discovered, which often become known only after a considerable time — in particular, following an audit, a journalistic investigation, criminal proceedings, or a change in the leadership of a government body. 

In addition, instead of placing the obligation to compensate the value of the property on the person guilty of its unlawful alienation, the current Code and the draft CC effectively oblige the owner (the state or community) to buy back its own property, and only then resolve the dispute with the guilty person.

This approach is also risky in view of the need to incur budget expenditures, as it imposes an additional financial burden that may be especially significant for local budgets. They may not provide for such planned expenditures at all, yet if funds are not deposited into the court’s account, the court will be unable to rule on the return of the property. Moreover, a bona fide acquirer may have purchased the property at an understated price, whereas the state or community would need to compensate its market value. 

In March last year, TI Ukraine called for vetoing Draft Law No. 12089, which was similar in content, but it ultimately entered into force. Therefore, before the second reading, it is necessary to reconsider the advisability of retaining the restrictions on the state and territorial communities in reclaiming property from bona fide acquirers.

5. Establishing additional guarantees for purchasers of sanctioned assets

In our study on the disposal of confiscated Russian assets, we highlighted the problem of investors’ reluctance to take part in auctions to acquire such property due to distrust of its background, which is associated with the risks of challenges by former owners. Potential buyers need additional guarantees from the state so that, whatever happens, they will not be left without the property. At present, legislation provides them with only one type of guarantee — the restriction on a previous owner’s recovery of property sold to a bona fide acquirer through privatization at an electronic auction, provided for in Article 388 of the Civil Code.

But part of the assets, in particular residential housing, were sold by the State Property Fund at electronic auctions under a procedure for alienating objects of state property other than privatization. Furthermore, in January 2026 the government approved a new, separate procedure for disposing of sanctioned assets. As a result, the guarantees for bona fide acquirers will not extend to property sold under these procedures. 

Consequently, a need arose to expand such guarantees. In January 2025, parliament adopted amendments to the Civil Code of Ukraine providing for a restriction on reclaiming property from a bona fide acquirer if they obtained it through an electronic auction. But they did not take effect because of technical and legal inconsistencies between the existing and the adopted provision. Nor did such a provision appear in the draft Civil Code.

In view of this, it is advisable to provide for appropriate guarantees by restricting the possibility of reclaiming from a bona fide acquirer property obtained through the disposal of assets in respect of which a court decision has been issued applying the sanction provided for in Article 4(1)(1-1) of the Law of Ukraine on Sanctions.

Conclusions and recommendations

The draft new Civil Code of Ukraine represents an attempt to adapt private law to contemporary social challenges, particularly the development of digital technologies, electronic communications, and the circulation of information. However, certain provisions of the draft pose direct risks to access to information, freedom of speech, and the protection of public assets.

In particular, the provisions on the right to be forgotten and the digital privacy of legal entities, in their proposed form, may create preconditions for restricting access to socially important information and complicating the work of journalists, civil society organizations, and services that work with open data. Evaluative criteria such as the “outdatedness” of information or the “loss of public interest” have no clear limits and may be applied arbitrarily, which creates risks of abuse and a chilling effect on freedom of speech, as the media and the public will avoid disseminating or retaining such information for fear of potential litigation.

Concern is also raised by the introduction of good morals as a separate source for regulating civil relations. Granting moral and ethical categories independent regulatory significance may expand the scope for subjective interpretation and the inconsistent application of rules, which potentially contradicts the principle of legal certainty and creates risks of a selective or discriminatory approach in law enforcement. 

The provisions on reclaiming state and municipal property from a bona fide acquirer require particular attention. The proposed approach effectively narrows the ability of the state and territorial communities to recover assets unlawfully alienated through fraudulent schemes or abuses, and also creates additional financial risks for budgets due to the need to compensate the value of the property to the bona fide acquirer in advance. 

The draft does not eliminate the problem of insufficient guarantees for purchasers of sanctioned assets, which could improve the effectiveness of their disposal. 

These provisions should be refined before the draft CC is considered in the second reading. We therefore recommend that parliament:

• in Article 328, remove the possibility of removing, anonymizing, destroying, or deindexing information about a person from publicly available sources on the grounds that it is “outdated,” “incomplete,” or has “lost public interest”;
• clarify the provisions of Article 353 regarding the processing of data on a legal entity’s digital image without its consent in cases where such information is open under the law;
• reconsider the advisability of introducing good morals as a separate source for regulating civil relations, given the existence of already established and settled means of legal regulation (law, contract, custom);
• reconsider the advisability of retaining the restrictions on the state and territorial communities in reclaiming property from bona fide acquirers;
• supplement Article 367 with a restriction on reclaiming from a bona fide acquirer property obtained through the disposal of assets in respect of which a court decision has been issued applying the sanction provided for in Article 4(1)(1-1) of the Law of Ukraine on Sanctions.

What lies ahead

Increasing the number of HACC judges remains one of the key tasks for strengthening the court’s work. Among other things, it determines whether top corruption cases are heard within reasonable deadlines.

The results of the competition also create a practical challenge. Some of the sitting first-instance HACC judges will likely move to the Appeals Chamber. In particular, the high-scoring candidates include sitting HACC judges Kateryna Sikora, Natalia Movchan, and Olena Tanasevych.

If these judges are appointed to the Appeals Chamber, new vacancies will open at the first-instance HACC. That is precisely why, alongside strengthening the appellate level, the first-instance HACC must be ensured adequate capacity. Without this, the risk of drawn-out proceedings will only grow.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the cases pending before these first-instance HACC judges will become subject to a hearing from the start. This is an outdated happroach that does not account for the modern means of recording court proceedings.

A separate issue is the future of international experts’ involvement in the selection of HACC judges. The current competition is being held with the participation of the Public Council of International Experts, which has become one of the most important safeguards against the appointment of candidates lacking integrity. But unless parliament extends its mandate, it will be impossible to hold future competitions under the same transparent and high-quality procedure.

Why the Strategy must be adopted without delay

The Anti-Corruption Strategy is the highest-level policy document setting state anti-corruption priorities for five years. On its basis, the government must, within six months of the law taking effect, approve the State Anti-Corruption Program (SAP) — an operational plan with specific measures, deadlines, and responsible parties.

This is Ukraine’s third Strategy. The first covered 2014–2017 and focused on building anti-corruption institutions. After it expired, Ukraine spent five years without a strategic document; the next was adopted only in June 2022, effectively under EU pressure ahead of candidate status. That strategy was largely declarative and did not reflect the realities of the full-scale invasion. The new 2026–2030 Strategy is far more detailed, covers more areas, and for the first time includes a separate section on recovery. It must also reflect Ukraine’s international commitments across all relevant areas.

Adopting the Strategy is itself an international commitment — required by the Ukraine Facility plan, the Rule of Law Roadmap, and the Kachka-Kos plan. The Ukraine Facility deadline for adopting the relevant law is the end of June 2026.

TI Ukraine took part in preparing the Strategy: our DOZORRO experts worked directly on the public procurement subsection and joined discussions on the others, providing written comments. We previously published a detailed analysis of the NACP Strategy text following public consultations.

That said, some of our comments on criminal justice in that analysis were also incorporated by the Agency into the version sent to the government for approval in early April and registered as a draft law by Anastasiia Radina. Notably, this version also provides for repealing the Lozovyi amendments.

What changed in the government’s version

Neither competing draft law is perfect, and several provisions in both could be refined. Still, the bill registered by the Committee Chair is currently the most ambitious version. The government, by contrast, dropped a number of important reforms, weakening the Strategy. Let us examine the government’s cuts in detail.

Competitive appointment of the Prosecutor General. The most significant difference is in the Prosecution Service subsection (2.2). The Committee Chair’s version lists eight problems; the government’s, seven. The government removed Problem 2.2.2, which provided for:

• appointing the Prosecutor General through a selection commission that recommends candidates to the President; 
• defining in law the grounds for a vote of no confidence in, and dismissal of, the Prosecutor General.

The Kachka-Kos plan envisages a comprehensive overhaul of the Prosecutor General’s selection and dismissal procedure to align it with best European practice, with input from the Venice Commission. This reform scored 0 out of 10 in the expert coalition’s monitoring, as no steps have been taken since December 2025. In the government’s draft law, the problem is not merely deferred to the SAP but removed entirely.

Reform of the SBI Director selection. In the Committee Chair’s version, Problem 2.2.7 covers the selection of the heads of the National Police and the State Bureau of Investigation — with a specific outcome on improving the SBI Director selection procedure in line with European Commission recommendations. 

In the government’s version, Problem 2.2.6 covers only the selection of the National Police leadership; a competition for the SBI head is absent. Yet SBI reform is also part of the Kachka-Kos plan and scored 1 out of 10 in the expert coalition’s monitoring.

Narrowing the SAPO Head’s powers. In the Committee Chair’s Strategy, point 1.10.3.1 granted the SAPO Head four categories of powers:

1. a) entering information on MPs into the URPTI and approving motions heard by an investigating judge; b) independently sending extradition requests and forming joint investigation teams; c) extending pre-trial investigation deadlines; d) carrying out any investigative and procedural actions in NABU proceedings without involving the Prosecutor General.

The government’s version keeps only (b) and (c). The removed points — (a) and (d) — are precisely those that most reduce SAPO’s dependence on the Prosecutor General and limit political influence over investigations. Requiring SAPO to clear procedural actions with the Prosecutor General is a structural vulnerability that allows investigations to be blocked or slowed through administrative tools.

Detail on NACP salaries. In the Committee Chair’s version, point 1.10.1.1 contains specific wording: to define in law the size and structure of salaries for all categories of NACP staff to ensure transparency and minimize the variable component. The government’s version retains only the general “proper legal regulation of financial provision,” without detail on pay structure. This change is not critical, since the requirement to set NACP staff salaries in the dedicated law is better placed in the SAP. 

What remained unchanged

Most of the Strategy’s text is identical in both versions. Both retain: autonomous wiretapping for the NABU, abolition of the automatic closure of criminal cases upon expiry of the statute of limitations, selection to the HQCJ and HCJ with international experts holding a decisive vote, and whistleblower protection under EU Directive 2019/1937.

Yet one of the weakest sections in both Strategies is the subsection on asset declaration, which omits most of Ukraine’s international commitments in this area — in particular, on the ineffectiveness of automated checks and the need to revisit the risk-based approach. The current financial control system cannot effectively prevent top-level corruption specifically, and this must be fixed.

Conclusions and recommendations

The comparative analysis shows that the government used the month-long delay not to improve the document but to weaken three provisions directly tied to the Kachka-Kos plan priorities.

These and other shortcomings must be corrected when the relevant law is adopted.

• The version developed by the NACP and registered by the Anti-Corruption Committee Chair is more ambitious and more fully reflects Ukraine’s international commitments. In any case, between the first and second readings the committee will be able to consider amendments from all entities with the right of legislative initiative, including the government.
• Removing points (a) and (d) from point 1.10.3.1 on the SAPO Head’s powers directly affects the operational independence of the anti-corruption prosecution. These provisions must appear in the final text of the Strategy.
• Regardless of which version parliament adopts as the basis, several provisions should be strengthened between readings — above all, the effectiveness of countering money laundering and the approaches to assessing e-declaration. Here, the NACP should focus on the quality of full checks, not merely the number of automated ones.

Further delay in voting on the Strategy is not an option. The previous cycle showed that late adoption of the Strategy and the SAP renders part of their content obsolete before implementation even begins. It is essential to preserve the document’s ambition and to strengthen it further.