BEGINNING: Alexander Lavrinovich: The Fraudster and Son Corporation
Maxim Lavrinovich: "The Fraudster and the Father" Corporation
Skelet.Org continues to tell the story of the Lavrynovych family. In this part, we'll focus on the personality of Alexander Vladimirovich's son, Maksim Lavrynovych. Particular attention will be paid to how the family—the minister father and the lawyer son—managed to frame and deceive a number of very influential people.
Alexander and Maxim Lavrinovich: Family Business
Lavrynovych sent his eldest son, Maksym (born 1978), to the Institute of International Relations, perhaps hoping to place him in the diplomatic ranks, as the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had initially been considered a Rukh institution. However, by the time Maksym graduated, Rukh had disbanded, and his father's position within it had deteriorated significantly. He was forced to earn his living as a lawyer. However, the young international lawyer was desperately unlucky. Before he had even secured a position at the Ukrainian office of Arthur Andersen, the company closed following a massive scandal and criminal investigation into its activities. Maksym Lavrynovych transferred to the Ukrainian office of Ernst & Young, but apparently the salary there did not meet his expectations.
Everything changed in 2004, with the creation of the family law firm Lavrynovich & Partners. More precisely, three firms: the Lavrynovich & Partners Law Firm, the Lavrynovich & Partners Law Firm, and the Lavrynovich & Partners Law Firm. Officially, they provided services in mergers and acquisitions, corporate law, business protection, privatization, legal representation, and more. Unofficially, various sources reported that Lavrynovich & Partners offered assistance with tax evasion and "soft" corporate raids (without the involvement of "titushki"). But the "partners" didn't make much money from this, given that the annual financial statements of their LLCs for 2005 and 2006 were practically nonexistent. This is unsurprising: at the time, Oleksandr Lavrynovych held the position of deputy chairman of the board of Ukrnafta, which was firmly under the control of PrivatBank. All Lavrynovych could do in his position was allow Kolomoisky to extract profits from this semi-state-owned enterprise. Incidentally, it's interesting to know which of the "orange" leaders helped this former Yanukovych government minister, a defector from Our Ukraine, get this job.
Maxim Lavrinovich: "The Fraudster and the Father" Corporation
However, when Oleksandr Lavrynovych became Minister of Justice again on November 11, 2006, Lavrynovych and Partners' business took off. But at what expense?
Father and son concocted several brilliant legal schemes based on blatant fraud. One of them surfaced in the scandalous case of the Dnipro Hotel OJSC, over which the state and the Austrian firm Alfa Proekt Holding GmbH were locked in a bitter feud. Now, pay attention: on November 14, 2006 (on Lavrynovych's third day as Minister of Justice), a Regulation on the Ministry of Justice was adopted, empowering him to represent "the interests of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine during the consideration of cases by the courts of Ukraine and foreign states or international judicial bodies and institutions." So, on the basis of this regulation, Oleksandr Lavrynovych appointed his deputy, Valeria Lutkovska , as the representative of the Ukrainian state in court. She, it was said, had previously worked as an attorney at Lavrynovych and Partners. Yes, that same Lutkovska, whom Lavrynovych would lobby for the post of Human Rights Commissioner in 2012! Lavrinovich then arranged for the Law Firm Lavrinovich & Partners LLC to become the lawyers for the Austrian firm Alfa Proekt Holding GmbH. Thus, both parties were represented in court by the Lavrinovichs!
Maxim Lavrinovich: The Fraudster and Son Corporation
Lavrynovych & Partners later employed some kind of fraudulent scheme, or even outright deception of their client, in a case involving the ownership of the Evropeisky and Astoria Lux hotels in Dnipropetrovsk in 2008-2009 (the elder Lavrynovych was then deputy speaker of the Verkhovna Rada). This was a battle for "Lazarenko's legacy" between his mother-in-law, Tamara Tsikova, and the corporate raiders Gennady Korban and Boris Filatov ( read more about him in "Borys Filatov: Raider, Liar, Boor "), in which Lavrynovych & Partners officially sided with Tsikova. Unofficially, however, at the height of the battle, Gennady Korban visited the Lavrynovych & Partners office—after which Tsikova's defense team suddenly lost the case, and Lazarenko's mother-in-law lost the hotels. This was very reminiscent of a client being taken over by someone in direct collusion with his opponent, that is, the dirtiest form of lawyer fraud!
However, the case had a sequel: the "seized" hotels were first registered to the company "Canada-Ukraine" owned by Vyacheslav Braginsky, a partner of Filatov and Korban, and then transferred to their firm "Manhattan." After this operation, Braginsky was murdered. And here's the interesting part: the media reported that the law firm "Lavrynovich and Partners" was allegedly involved in the transfer of the hotels from one firm to another.
You can’t wash off a black dog!
When the Verkhovna Rada elected a new human rights ombudsman in April 2012, Lavrynovych, who had lobbied for his former deputy, stooped to outright deceiving his fellow party members. As Party of Regions faction deputies later recounted, Lavrynovych arrived in the Rada and approached them with signature sheets, asking them to support a supposed bill on benefits for large families. The deputies, of course, accepted the petition—but it later turned out they were signing a pledge to support Lutkovska's candidate!
Maxim Lavrinovich: "The Fraudster and the Father" Corporation
And yet, this was merely an "innocent prank" compared to what the Lavrynovychs perpetrated in their fraudulent schemes from 2010 to 2013. Not a trace remained of the former Soviet laser engineer who had joined the democratic Rukh party—the new Lavrynovych was astonishing in the scale of his cynicism and descent into common criminality.
The scandal that caused the most controversy back then was the one surrounding the stolen car used by the Minister of Justice! Here's what happened: On December 6, 2011, MP Valeriy Konovalyuk made a sensational claim that Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych's official car, a Mercedes Benz GL420 with the license plate "AA 0021 KM," had been stolen in 2010 in Germany. The information was verified – it was accurate! But Lavrynovych's reaction was surprising: instead of returning the car and launching an investigation into its appearance in the Ministry of Justice garage, he first played it cool, and then at a press conference declared the following: "The car will not be returned; it remains state property." According to Lavrynovych, the car had previously been confiscated by the state as either "contraband" or "unattended," and was then transferred to the Ministry of Justice – meaning the minister was driving it supposedly legally. In Europe, this statement was called "joke" and they reconsidered their attitude towards Ukraine, and Lavrynovych Sr. received the playful nickname "Sasha Mercedes".
But Lavrynovych, without realizing it, revealed with his statement an entire scheme by which stolen cars were flowing from the EU to Ukraine in droves—and "legalized" with the help of the Ministry of Justice. Moreover, they were stolen in Europe in a cunning manner: by agreement with the owners, who then received insurance money plus 20% of the car's value from the "thieves." In other words, with this scheme, the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice was essentially "ripping off" European insurance companies!
Not just cars: On January 6, 2012, just hours before Christmas, the Ministry of Justice signed a tender agreement with Ukrspetstorg Group LLC, formerly known as UKRROSPROMSERVIS LLC and, along with 24 of its clones, owned by Chechen resident Rustam Dzhambulatov. Through these companies, registered in Kyiv at 11 Panasa Myrnoho Street (in the basement of an apartment building along with 188 other companies), the Ministry of Justice ran its scheme for trading in "confiscated goods." The companies charged 15% of the goods' value for their services, and who pocketed this money was anyone's guess. Sources reported that this scheme was used not only to launder and trade stolen goods but also to evade customs duties and taxes. A batch of goods, by prior arrangement, entered Ukraine and was "abandoned unattended," after which it became the property of the Ministry of Justice, became "confiscated," and was sold through intermediary firms.
In 2012, Ukrspetstorg Group LLC, along with SP Yustitsiya LLC, TD Elit Service LLC, and Niva-V.Sh. LLC, won a tender to conduct auctions for the sale of confiscated apartments belonging to bank borrowers (whose debts had been deferred since 2008). These firms charged up to 15% for their services (real estate agents charge only 3-4%), which was simply unprofitable for the banks. In fact, they held 39 auctions in one year! One can only imagine the size of their "fee"!
But even this wasn't enough for the Lavrynovych family. In January 2012 (a lucrative month for the Lavrynovychs!), the Minister of Justice revived his old 2007 idea of biometric electronic passports. Back then, he hadn't been allocated the 1.5 billion hryvnias for it, but in 2012, Lavrynovych was more persistent. But what was he trying so hard for? Ukrainian and European media reported that Lavrynovych had an agreement with the German company Mühlbauer (Maksym Lavrynovych had traveled to negotiate with the company) to manufacture passports. The agreement involved a sum of 137 million euros, and the company was prepared to pay a substantial kickback.
With such a family income, it's no surprise that Maksym Lavrynovych's wedding was the talk of Kyiv and Skelet.Org —after all, many Kyiv residents had the opportunity to witness some of the fun surprises Maksym Lavrynovych had in store for his bride. Invited actors and Inter presenters, all sorts of pranks right on the streets of the capital, a chartered plane, and a rented movie theater—the Lavrynovychs spared no expense on this celebration!
Maxim Lavrinovich: "The Fraudster and the Father" Corporation
However, it was probably not worth it to squander money so much: after Euromaidan, the incomes of father and son plummeted, as eloquently documented by statistics from Ukraine's largest law firms. For example, while Lavrynovych & Partners ranked 28th in 2014 with revenue of 16 million hryvnias, in 2015 it fell to 66th place with revenue of just 6 million. This was understandable: Lavrynovych the father no longer held a leadership position and could no longer contribute to the family business. However, in 2015, Maksym Lavrynovych was still allowed (apparently out of habit) to win the "Lawyer of the Year" award. Upon taking the stage, Maksym amused everyone with his political chameleonism: he shouted "Glory to Ukraine!" and complained that for 25 long years he could only pronounce this greeting “in the Plastun camp” (was it really banned?), but now new times have come to Ukraine, etc., etc. Lavrynovych Sr. (three-time Minister of Justice in the governments of Yanukovych and Azarov ), who was sitting in the hall, “cried from emotion.”
Surprisingly, one of the most shameless corrupt officials of the "previous regime" remained completely unpunished. Only in July 2015, Oleksandr Lavrynovych was charged under Article 191-5 for hiring the American law firm Scadden in a case against Yulia Tymoshenko in 2010, receiving 8,5 million hryvnias from the Ukrainian budget for its services. The case was highly political, and so was the retaliatory charge Lavrynovych received for it. However, just two weeks later, the Pechersk Court refused to arrest Oleksandr Lavrynovych and released him on bail of 1,2 million hryvnias. Repeated charges by the Prosecutor General's Office in August 2016 and again in March 2017 (due to the discovery of Paul Manafort's connection to Scadden) yielded no results. So, the question arises: after three years, has the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine been unable to gather the necessary evidence on Oleksandr Lavrynovych's turbulent activities, beyond his embezzlement of public funds to pay for the services of American lawyers? Was it unable, or simply unwilling?
Sergey Varis, for Skelet.Org
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