Financial Returns Audit Obligatory for All Business Companies Starting from 2007
Legal Alert by Asters, Attorneys at Law
April 2, 2008

As a result of enactment of the Law of Ukraine "On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Auditing" dated September 14, 2006, No. 140-V, confirmation of truthfulness and completeness of annual financial returns by an auditor or auditing firm (the "Audit") became obligatory for all business companies, including inter alia limited liability companies, starting from 2007, except for the companies with annual turnover less than UAH 4,250. The latter shall conduct the Audit once in 3 years.

Notably, at present Ukrainian law envisages no liability for business companies or their officials for non-conducting the Audit. Furthermore, statistic authorities have no legal grounds to reject financial returns of business companies that are not confirmed by the Audit.

Asters advised EBRD on USD 139.3 million financing to Expert Capital S.A. to finance commercial real estate construction projects in Ukraine

Asters acted as a Ukrainian legal counsel to the European Bank for the Reconstruction and Development in connection with a USD 139.3 million secured loan facility provided to three Ukrainian subsidiaries of Panorama Group Ltd., a Ukrainian holding company wholly owned by Expert Capital S.A., a leading Luxemburg’s development company. The relevant loan agreement was signed on 27 March 2008.

The borrowed funds will be used to finance the design, development, construction, ownership and operation of the shopping centre in Kyiv, the hypermarket, shopping and entertaining centre in Kryvyi Rig and the administrative building with the complex of technical service, camping and shopping centre in Simferopol. The Russian hypermarket retail chain O-Key will be the primary lessee of these objects. It is anticipated that construction of three modern shopping centers will help solving the problem of insufficiency of modern retail space in Ukraine.

The transaction was handled by the Asters’ banking and finance team which was led by partners Armen Khachaturyan and Iryna Pokanay and included associate Gabriel Aslanian. Real estate aspects of the project were covered by senior associate Roman Kostenko and associate Pavlo Oliynyk.

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Asters is a Kyiv-based Ukrainian law firm founded in 1995 as Shevchenko Didkovskiy & Partners. The firm is among the most recommended law firms for Ukraine according to reputable international legal directories The Legal 500, PLC Which Lawyer?, Chambers Global, IFLR 1000, and Ukraine's legal market research publications. A list of the firm's clients includes major international corporations, such as Beiersdorf AG, Coca-Cola, Damen Shipyards Group, News Corp., Nissan Motor, Nokia Corporation, Philip Morris, Telenor ASA, Toshiba Corporation, and the world's leading financial institutions Barclays Capital, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, EBRD, IFC, ING Bank, Standard Bank and Swedbank AB.