Artur Yemelyanov: The Raider Judge of the Yanukovych Era Still in Business

Almost two years have passed since the start of the Ukrainian “Revolution of Dignity”, which resulted in the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych and his political team. However, not all of his former comrades have disappeared into oblivion, many of them still control their old “feeding troughs”. One of the main “pupils” of the Yanukovych regime is the former deputy chairman of the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine (VKhSU) Artur Yemelyanov. This typical representative of the “Donetsk” miraculously managed to avoid lustration in the justice bodies, and law enforcement officers simply turned a blind eye to his “dark deeds”. More precisely, an impressive sum transferred to “competent people” helped to close these eyes, but more on that later. First, let’s figure out where Artur Yemelyanov came from in the judicial system of Ukraine.

A brilliant judicial career

Ukrainian media have known about Artur Stanislavovich for a long time. He attracted attention to his person with his rapid career growth in the judicial sphere. He first became a judge in 2000 in the Commercial Court of Donetsk Oblast. Five years later (in 2005), having earned a reputation as a “correct” judge, he was appointed deputy chairman. After working as a deputy for several years, he became the head of the Commercial Court of Donetsk Oblast (2010), although not for long. In 2011, at the instigation of his main “accomplice”, and concurrently the then head of the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine Viktor Tatkov, he became the chairman of the Commercial Court of Kyiv (2012). A little later, upon the recommendation of the Council of Judges of the Commercial Court, he was recommended for the post of deputy chairman of the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine, where he worked until the beginning of 2014. After the “Revolution of Dignity,” Yemelyanov and Tatkov were demoted to ordinary judges, but their “corruption control” schemes, built up over the years, did not go away.

It was the Tatkov-Emelyanov tandem that was engaged in the “construction” of the vertical of economic courts controlled by the “Yanukovych family” throughout Ukraine. They managed to organize a tough corruption system in the specialized arbitration courts under their control. During the tandem’s operation, more than 500 judges were introduced into the judicial system. At various times, materials appeared in the media incriminating Tatkov and Emelyanov in corruption schemes and illegal activities, but law enforcement officers stubbornly ignore them, or simply do not want to notice them.

Artur Yemelyanov hides from journalists in his own office

“Fair” schemes for distributing cases among judges

For many Ukrainian businessmen, the names of Artur Yemelyanov and Viktor Tatkov have become synonymous with judicial lawlessness; their most “cunning” achievement was the system of distributing cases between judges. The idea is simple: after a case was sent to a specific judge, he was asked to make a decision on it in the way the customer needed, but if the judge refused, the case was postponed to a day when he was on vacation, and the case was automatically transferred to another. Because of such machinations, some cases went through 5-6 judges at once, but eventually ended up with an “understanding” one who was ready to resolve it for a certain amount. These schemes were often used to legitimize raider takeovers that were organized by the Tatkov-Yemelyanov criminal group. Other businessmen and oligarchs often resorted to their services. The price of resolving issues often fluctuated around several million dollars. Over time, several dozen millionaire judges appeared in the Ukrainian judicial system, who helped the “tandem” and, accordingly, received kickbacks for this. Today, most of them still work in their previous positions, because lustration did not really affect them.

This is not surprising, because the activities of the organized crime group of raider judges are covered by a reliable roof in the High Council of Justice (HCJ). One of Artur Yemelyanov’s partners is the current member of the HCJ Pavel Grechkovsky. At the time when Leonid Chernovetsky was the mayor of Kyiv (Read more about him in the article Leonid Chernovetsky: How “Lenya Kosmos” Robbed Kyiv and Moved to Georgia) Grechkovsky, with the active assistance of Yemelyanov, managed to gain control over 7.5 hectares of protected forests on Zhukov Island near Kiev. Prosecutors waged a long, bitter battle with the company “Cesil” (owned by Grechkovsky), which leased those lands, but the company managed to emerge victorious from the court, in particular because of Artur Yemelyanov, who headed the Kiev Commercial Court at the time.

As a result, among his colleagues and others, Yemelyanov received the nickname “All inclusive”, because if he took on “a case”, he was guaranteed to accompany it from the first to the last judicial instance. No connections or money could help “intercept” Yemelyanov’s influence on the decisions made by judges.

The most famous raider attacks in Ukraine, in which Tatkov-Emelyanov is involved:

Konstantinovka Crystal Plant, Makeyevka Department Store, TOR Mechanical Plant, Bratislava Hotel, Polymer Alliance LTD, Donetsk Central Department Store, Druzhba Restaurant in Konstantinovka, Shakhtar Hotel, Decor Donbass Shopping Mall, Odessa Stalkanat, Europe’s largest industrial goods market 7 Kilometer, and dozens of other enterprises throughout Ukraine.

Investigation by the “Public Lustration Committee”:

“Honest” income declaration

The amount that Judge Yemelyanov managed to “appropriate” is indirectly evidenced by his income declaration, in which he, without any embarrassment, indicated 12 apartments ranging in size from 42 sq. m to 319 sq. m, as well as two large houses (one of them over 725 sq. m). In addition, there are several million hryvnias in his wife’s bank account. And this is only the tip of Artur Stanislavovich’s financial iceberg.

Artur Yemelyanov’s wife Svetlana was the owner of a small beauty salon in Donetsk and self-development courses. Of course, one can assume that she bought the apartments and that she also brings in the main income for the family, but when analyzing the financial results of her companies, it was revealed that they were actually operating at a loss. The question arises: where did the millions in her income declaration come from?

“Stash” in Liechtenstein

In the summer of 2015, the State Financial Monitoring Service managed to find part of the funds that belonged to the former deputy chairman of the Supreme Commercial Court of Ukraine. Together with law enforcement agencies of Liechtenstein, the Ukrainian monitoring agency found several companies that were registered in Panama and Liechtenstein, and in whose accounts huge financial assets of dubious origin had been accumulating for several years. The total amount of Yemelyanov’s assets in accounts in Liechtenstein (his “stash”) amounted to more than 13 million Swiss francs (about 300 million UAH). The Prosecutor General’s Office has long had the results of investigations into the illegal origin of these funds, however, there is still no request to bring Artur Stanislavovich to justice, because if there’s one thing he knows, it’s “negotiating.”

Personal “indulgence” from lustration

Evidence of his phenomenal ability to “negotiate” are the changes made to the law “On Restoring Trust in the Judicial System.” According to sources, as a result of its amendment, deputy chairmen of courts, such as Artur Stanislavovich, were excluded from the list of persons subject to dismissal under lustration. Later, Yemelyanov stated that he managed to achieve changes to the law through direct agreements with the drafter of the bill, the current Minister of Justice Pavel Petrenko (Read more about him in the article by Pavel Petrenko. The “pocket” boy of the “Family” of Yatsenyuk). However, he modestly kept silent about the fact that these changes cost him $5 million. If you think about it, it’s not that expensive, especially considering that they untied his hands for new “feats” in the judicial field.

Latest events

There have been reports in the media that the former first deputy head of the Presidential Administration (of Viktor Yanukovych) Andriy Portnov has had a grudge against Artur Yemelyanov for many years (more about him in the article Andrey Portnov: a raider story). It is his participation that is traced in the disclosure of the facts of the existence of accounts in Panama and Liechtenstein. However, as is known, Petro Poroshenko has had an “equally big grudge” against Portnov since Portnov’s time at the State Securities and Stock Market Committee (mid-2000s), when Portnov actively prevented the future president from obtaining a number of valuable assets by raider means. Therefore, Yemelyanov’s position in the conflict with Portnov is somewhat more advantageous in the current political situation.

At the end of summer 2015, it became known that the services of Tatkov and Emelianenko were used by Ukrainian oligarchs, the Vagorovsky brothers. He decided to regain control over the Amstor retail chain, the controlling stake of which was bought from the Vagorovskys by Vadim Novinsky back in 2009. Read more in the article “Raiders of the Yanukovych era are creating a new trading empire on the orders of Vagorovsky”

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All law enforcement agencies know about the criminal activities of Artur Yemelyanov, as well as his accomplice Viktor Tatkov, at different times they were checked by various investigative bodies and inspection commissions. Over the years of their “activities” they committed thousands of crimes, but not a single investigation of their activities reached the court. Ukrainian raider judges continue to rob Ukrainian businesses. And neither the revolution nor the war in the country stops them.

Dmitry Samofalov, for SKELET-info

Also on the topic:

Elusive swindlers: Yemelyanov and Tatkov continue to rob Ukrainian businesses
Why does lustration not apply to the gangster judges from the Yanukovych clan?