The HACC closed the criminal proceedings against Serhii Onishchenko, former liquidator of Stolytsia Bank, on charges of official negligence, owing to the expiry of the statute of limitations.

According to the investigation, in the course of the liquidation of Bank Stolytsia PJSC — initiated by the National Bank of Ukraine in 2012 after the revocation of its banking license — the powers to manage and sell the bank's assets were entrusted to a liquidator, an official of the NBU. From May 2014, these powers were exercised by Serhii Onishchenko. As liquidator, he performed organizational-and-administrative and administrative-and-economic functions, and also had full access to the bank's assets and loan files.

According to the investigation, the bank's assets included claim rights under 2007 loan agreements totaling over UAH 34 million, concluded with Ukrmetalzabezpechennia LLC and Alternatyva Group LLC. Performance of these obligations was secured by a pledge in the form of M-100 grade fuel oil with a total volume of over 28,000 tons, which was actually stored at Kyivenergo facilities. According to the investigation's estimate, the market value of this collateral as of 2015 was at least over UAH 200 million.

Despite this, the prosecution maintains, Onishchenko did not ensure a proper verification of whether the pledged property actually existed, took no measures to enforce against it, and did not arrange a proper valuation of the assets that took the collateral into account. Instead, he gave representatives of interested legal entities access to the loan files, which influenced the subsequent valuation of the assets.

As stated in the charges, the expert study by the Kyiv Research Institute of Forensic Expertise failed to take into account the information about the pledged property, which led to the debt being deemed uncollectible and the claim rights being valued at zero. These findings were subsequently used for an independent valuation, which set the value of the claim rights at around UAH 61,000, likewise ignoring the existing collateral.

According to the investigation, on the basis of these valuations the National Bank of Ukraine approved the sale of the assets, and on January 5, 2015, the claim rights were sold at auction for UAH 68,186. The buyer thereby also obtained the rights under the security agreements, in particular the ability to foreclose on the pledged property.

However, the real value of the collateral securing the loans was over UAH 200 million, while the value of the claim rights themselves, taking the pledge into account, was at least over UAH 61 million. The bank's assets were thus disposed of at a price significantly below their real economic value.

As a result of the assets being sold at an understated value, the Deposit Guarantee Fund incurred losses of over UAH 29 million, since the money paid out to the bank's depositors was not recovered from the liquidation estate.

Onishchenko's actions were classified under Article 364(2) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, but during the trial the prosecutor reclassified them under Article 367(2).

In January 2020, the HACC released Serhii Onishchenko from criminal liability and closed the proceedings owing to the expiry of the statute of limitations.