The widow of the owner of the WOG network appealed the distribution of assets

Supreme Court sends case for retrial in a long-running legal dispute over the assets of a business group Continuumwhich is one of the largest players in the fuel market of Ukraine. The court upheld the cassation appeal of Tatyana Eremeeva, the widow of the late businessman and deputy Igor Eremeev, which she filed against MP Stepan Ivakhiv, according to data in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.

The court’s decision states that the essence of the dispute lies in the property division agreement concluded between Ivakhiv and his ex-husband in September 2021. Tatyana Eremeeva said that the citizen’s representative illegally transferred the corporate rights to the group’s assets to his ex-husband. Continuum – a company in which 25% of the shares belonged to the late Eremeev. According to the widow, this step was intended to prevent the distribution of assets in favor of her family.

In making the decision to reconsider the case, the judicial panel was based on several procedural errors made in the preliminary hearings. In particular, the resolution states that Ivakhiv refused to provide a copy of the contract to his wife, and the judges did not take coercive measures to obtain this document. In addition, requesting the contract from notaries does not confirm the existence of official records of its certification.

The court also refers to the possible abuse of the law on the part of Ivakhiv, noting that such behavior may be an attempt to avoid legal obligations to the heirs.

The case was returned for reconsideration with instructions to examine the circumstances of the conclusion of the contract and possible manipulations on the part of the defendant.

Let’s remember that the founder and co-owner of the fuel and industrial holding Continuum Igor Eremeev died in 2015 without leaving a will. After that, a legal battle began between his former partners Stepan Ivakhiv and Sergei Lagur, on the one hand, and the widow Tatyana Eremeeva, on the other, for Igor Eremeev’s 25% share. According to the widow, businessmen are trying to appropriate these properties and exclude her and her children from the shareholders of the WOG group of companies.

Eremeev’s former partners claim that part of the deceased businessman’s shares are under their management as part of the R&S Trust. It was allegedly founded by Igor Eremeev himself and involved in the shares of the companies Yudelle Asset Holdings and WOG Holding Ltd., which appeared after the reorganization of the WOG Group and the transfer of jurisdiction to the Netherlands and the British Virgin Islands. However, Lagur and Ivakhiv bought Igor Eremeev’s shares, and did not receive the right to manage them as part of their participation in the trust.