The Chernihiv District Administrative Court obliged the State Geology and Subsoil Service of Ukraine to make changes to special permit #4953, transferring the rights to use the Fedoriv oil and gas field in the Poltava region from Trends System LLC to STK Real Estate LLC. This decision was taken against the background of sanctions against Vadym Yermolayev, the ultimate beneficial owner of the seller company, which caused a delay in the execution of the sales contract.
According to the case materials, Trends System LLC and STK Real Estate LLC concluded a contract for the purchase and sale of subsoil use rights on December 5, 2023. However, when the buyer applied to the State Geodesy with an application to make appropriate changes to the special permit, he was refused due to inaccurate information in the documents and suspension of the special permit based on the sanctions of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine against Vadym Yermolayev, the ultimate beneficial owner of the seller company.
The court supported STK Real Estate LLC, because at the time of concluding the contract on December 5, 2023, the company did not know and could not have known about the application of sanctions against Yermolayev, which were introduced on December 23, 2023. On July 2, 2024, the CSAO partially suspended the effect of the order of the State Geodesy on the refusal to make changes, and on July 22, 2024, it made a decision on the obligation of the State Geodesy to make changes to the special permit.
It is interesting that the court's decision coincided with another event: on July 20-22, 2024, Vadym Yermolaev was removed from the owners of Trends System LLC, his place was taken by Yermolaeva Hanna Inokentievna. Stanislav Vilenskyi, who has controlled STK Real Estate LLC since 2017, recently changed the company's place of registration from Dnipro to Chernihiv.
We will remind that in 2023-2024, the State Geodesy stopped the operation of a number of special permits to Ukrainian companies due to the sanctions of the NSDC. Expropriation of special permits for the use of subsoil became possible after changes to the Code of Ukraine on Subsoil, introduced on March 28, 2023.
The decision of the PSC from July 22, 2024 has not yet entered into force and can be appealed to the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal within thirty days.
