• Mykola Ochkolda

    Managing Partner, Attorney-at-law, Legitimus Law Firm

  • Volodymyr Kucheriaviy

    Attorney-at-law,
    Legitimus Law Firm

Legitimus Law Firm

Address: 49 A Volodymyrska Street, Suite 149,  Kiev, 01001, Ukraine

Tel./Fax: +380 44 585 8255/56/57

E-mail: legitimus@legitimus.com.ua

Web-site: www.legitimus.com.ua

Legitimus Law Firm was founded in 2006. Our team has 15 lawyers, who have considerable experience in various fields of legal practice. The main principles of our team are professionalism, efficiency, honesty and confidentiality.

The professional skills and knowledge of Legitimus Law Firm enable our team of experts to focus on the results of your business, so the partners and lawyers of companies participate directly in each client project.

Legitimus Law Firm is a full-service law firm oriented at providing comprehensive legal advice to Ukrainian and international clients. The principal practice areas of our firm include real estate and land law, banking and finance, litigation and arbitration, corporate and M&A, taxation and international trade/foreign investment.

Real estate and land law

Legitimus Law Firm provides full legal support in real estate transactions for client interests, including drafting agreements with respect to real estate and land deals: advice on the safest ways of acquiring and alienating real estate rights, support for land plots allotment and registration procedures of ownership rights, registration procedures for ownership rights, registration procedures to ownership rights for other real estate objects.

Corporate law

Our firm provides a range of services in the field of corporate law which includes registration of legal entities, compliance with regulatory requirements following antimonopoly law while establishing and structuring holding companies, etc. Full legal support of M&A deals, companies legal due diligence and compiling documents to eliminate and minimize risks and deficiencies; M&A support in compliance with Ukrainian and foreign tax and corporate law, legal support in ensuring prevention from hostile acquisitions, majority and minority shareholders rights protection, registration of financial institutions and financial services licensing support.

Litigation and arbitration

Our team has solid litigation experience in courts of first instance, courts of appeal, Higher Commercial Court, Higher Administrative Court and the Supreme Court of Ukraine.

Taxation

Legitimus Law Firm advises and provides legal opinions regarding taxation of legal entities and individuals in Ukraine, carrying out legal analysis of drafts agreement in terms of tax liabilities, developing efficient tax schemes for the business activities of companies. The company also represents the interests of both legal entities and individuals at all stages of tax dispute resolution (reviews, litigations).

International trade/foreign investment

Legitimus Law Firm offers legal advice for the international business activities of residents, commercial activity of non-residents in Ukraine.

Our clients include domestic and international companies, investment funds, financial institutions and others.

Languages: Ukrainian, English, Spanish, Russian.

The Path to Free Movement of Capital in Ukraine. The First Steps

Over the last few years, the currency system has been undergoing constant changes and improvement. Limitations established earlier are now being abolished, and these are followed by exemptions, which become the basis for liberalization of the Ukrainian currency system.

It’s worth recalling that certain obsolete statutory provisions, prohibiting or restricting the conduct of currency transactions by investors, were previously in force. Moreover, there were certain issues related to the opening of accounts in Ukrainian banks by investors and the list of available transactions was quite limited.

Starting from 2019, a number of re­gulations have been enacted in Ukraine, whose ultimate objective is to change the obsolete and imperfect system of currency regulation and to bring the regulatory and legal framework into line with the statutory provisions of European legislation. Hence, such liberalization should be followed by the abolition of restrictions that were in effect until recently and by creating the possibility for the free movement of capital.

It should be noted that, after all, the main objective of “currency liberalization” is to improve the investment attractiveness of Ukraine for foreign investors.

It’s important for investors not only to make a profit and to freely manage their own funds but to feel protected. At the same time, an important issue for investors will be the country ranking in relation to Doing Business.

Over the past few years, Ukraine’s position has improved a little, partially due to the introduction of changes to regulations on corporate governance of econo­mic entities, the implementation of additional mechanisms to protect shareholder rights and of mechanisms to regulate relations between these. In particular, many things have already been borrowed from relevant corporate instruments and institutions from the Anglo-Saxon legal system and European legal standards (the institution of corporate agreement, escrow account, option agreements).

The country’s currency policy will always remain important for investors and it will, in any case, determine “attractiveness” for such an investor.

Until recently, a sufficiently massive but obsolete system of currency regulation was in effect in Ukraine. Among the basic regulations, the following should be noted: the Decree of the Cabinet of Mi­nisters of Ukraine On the System of Currency Regulation and Currency Control No. 15-93 (hereinafter — the Decree), the Law of Ukraine On the Procedure for Settlement in Foreign Currency No. 185/94-VR of 23 September 1994 and the Decree of the President of Ukraine On the Regulation of the Procedure for Recei­ving Loans, Fo­reign Currency Loans from Non-Residents by Residents and ­Application of Penalties for Violation of Currency Legislation No. 734 of 27 June 1999.

The Law of Ukraine On Currency and Currency Transactions No. 2473-VIII has been adopted to replace the mentioned regulations, and a number of other Regulations of the National Bank of Ukraine were drafted.

The Law became the basis for the new system of currency regulation and control implementation in Ukraine intended to simplify currency circulation, improve bank processes and abolish existing currency restrictions. Specific provisions, regulatory mechanisms, and requirements are being implemented by the National Bank in the form of a number of resolutions.

Some NBU resolutions are in force on a permanent basis, and some will have a temporary or conditional period of being in force.

The objective of the updated legislative framework is to simplify the conduct of banking transactions for residents of Ukraine and non-residents.

We would like to highlight the changes and features of the updated procedures related to currency regulation in Ukraine which could be interesting and useful for a foreign investor.

First of all, the dividend payment limit has been significantly increased. The payment of dividends for 2017 is now allowed for the benefit of foreign investors within a single limit of up to EUR 12 million per month and to return investments made in the amount of up to EUR 5 million per month.

Therefore, the established limit will provide even more demand for currency on the part of companies willing to pay dividends to foreign investors, while minimizing the impact of payments on the status of the Interbank Currency Market.

Also, one of the important changes is amendments made to the procedure for obtaining loans from non-residents.

From now on, a resident will have the right to be financed from abroad in the form of a loan/credit without registe­ring the relevant loan agreement with the NBU.

Currently, the procedure for such loan agreements registration has been replaced by notification on conclusion of relevant agreements, which should be sent to the NBU. Under the new rules, the servicing bank will check all the transaction documents and introduce information about the agreement into an automated information system which, in fact, allows for further transfer of funds. Moreover, the restrictions on the amount of the maximum interest rate on such loan agreements were abo­lished, which would enable the building of relationships between the creditor and borrower in real market terms and conditions.

Along with cancellation of registration of credit agreements, the prohibition on early repayment of loans was canceled. This decision by the NBU will enable business entities to manage their own debt obligations to non-residents more effectively and repay obligations in advance.

One of the positive changes is prolon­ging the deadline for settlement under export and import agreements from 180 to 365 days. Moreover, the liability in the form of termination of foreign economic activity for violation of the settlement deadline is abolished, followed by establishment of more lenient financial penalties.

An interesting novelty for Ukraine is the change in the regime of bank accounts that non-residents can now open in authorized Ukrainian banks.

Now non-resident legal entities can open not only investment accounts in authorized Ukrainian banks, which have kind of reduced the possibilities to use funds available (use of funds only for investment and investment-related payments), but also simple bank accounts without restriction on the use of available funds. This will facilitate the activities of non-resident companies in Ukraine and making of investment in Ukraine to a great extent, and enable Ukrainian banks to compete with foreign ones.

The interesting novelty is the possibi­lity of investing in Ukraine not only in the currencies of the first but also of the se­cond group of the currency classifier. This could be of interest to investors from CIS countries and the East, as this will allow investment to be made in Ukraine in national currencies and avoid currency risks and losses when buying currencies of the first group of the currency classifier to actually make the investment.

The main objective of changes in the currency legislation of Ukraine is the replacement of the “currency control” concept to “currency supervision”, which is carried out to establish the compliance of foreign exchange transactions with currency legislation, taking into account the risk-oriented approach.

The main objective is to implement the internal compliance of each client and financial monitoring over transactions by the authorized banks themselves. This practice has long been used around the world, particularly in the European Union, where banks are the first to check their clients and their transactions for compliance with legislation. This greatly reduces interference by the state in the system of currency regulation and the banking system as a whole.

In any case, all other existing currency restrictions in Ukraine will be gradually replaced with relevant legislative chan­ges until full freedom of foreign exchange transactions is reached, subject to favorable economic conditions.

This is in some way related to the commitments undertaken by Ukraine, particular with regard to  implementation of the BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) Plan, the introduction of the Common Reporting Standard and bringing Ukrainian legislation into line with European Union legislation, in particular, regarding the free movement of capital, which Ukraine undertook within the framework of the Association Agreement signed with the EU.

If we analyze all the legislative changes regarding the updated currency regulation procedure in Ukraine in more detail, weig­hing up all the pros and cons, we can confidently claim that the first and perhaps the most important step towards the establishment of favorable investment conditions in Ukraine, the construction of a financial system in Ukraine, which could provide business entities with the same tools and benefits that the financial systems of developed countries use, have already been made.