On the 29th of October 2021, Oleksandr Nikin was detained on charges of inciting an assistant to the people’s Deputy for allegedly providing unlawful benefits to this deputy for withdrawing Bill 5572 from consideration. No funds that could be the subject of these corrupt actions were found and/or seized at the place of detention or any other places.
The background to this is as follows. For the time being there are 5 bills aiming to change the sphere of copyright and related right protection. In August 2021 at the meeting of the Supervisory Board of ULCRR there was a discussion on interaction with Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. It was decided that we need to hire a specialist to conduct such a work with MPs, heads of the committees and deputy groups, in order to bring them information about the consequences of the adoption of particular legislative acts. We were offered a candidate for this position, Mr. Rozumenko, by people from the music industry. We negotiated his terms of work, and appropriate contracts to pay for his work were prepared. Unfortunately, quite a common relationships for obtaining services in the field of relations with the government were filed by interested parties as an attempt to bribe MP Sanchenko.
Such a perception of this relationship is not legally justified. Because deputy Sanchenko is a member of the information policy committee, while bill 5572 is the responsibility of the economic development committee. Therefore, deputy Sanchenko, even if he really wanted to, could in no way influence the passage of this bill. At the time of the relationship with a cpacialist on interaction with Verkhovna Rada, the bill had already passed the first reading, which means that Sanchenko, although he was the author of the bill, could not influence the further voting in any way.
Moreover, neither Mr. Sanchenko nor Mr. Rozumenko applied to law enforcement agencies with statements that there were attempts to corrupt them. The criminal case was initiated without any statements “based on the materials of law enforcement agencies.”
Oleksandr Nikin, Director General of ULCRR:
– Since the launch of criminal proceedings I have been fully cooperating with the investigation, testifying ang providing explanations. At the same time, I hope that the merits of the case are being investigated in good faith. The organisation is operating as normal. For the time being we have finished preparation of the technical part of joining IPD and are close to onboarding. We are in constant contact with SCAPR on this issue. Work on signing new agreements also continues. Currently we have 36 agreements with foreign CMOs, 14 of which are with SCAPR members.
