Vasil Kisil & Partners has successfully represented the interests of Kischenzi in a tax dispute.
Kischenzi is an integrated farm consisting of agricultural, dairy, vegetable, and pig activities and is located in the Central part of Ukraine.
According to Vasil, Kisil & Partners, “unidentified persons who pretended to act for the Dutch company with whom Kischenzi previously made a heifer supply contract and, accordingly, made partial payment for the goods, sent an email in April 2019, asking the company to remit the other part of the payment due under the contract but this time to another bank account. The company, being 100% sure that it was in fact its counterparty, remitted the money to the account so notified.”
Subsequently, according to the firm, “based on its inspection findings in autumn 2022, a tax authority brought a claim that the company’s transfer of funds to the unidentified persons’ account was an import transaction and directly concerned the contract made with the Dutch company. Thus, it applied provisions of the Law of Ukraine on Currency and Currency Transactions to the company and imposed the maximum penalty possible, that is, a penalty of the paid amount (almost EUR 200,000) for missing payment deadlines. The first instance court affirmed in full such a position of the tax authority.”
Finally, Vasil Kisil & Partner succeeded in getting a positive outcome before the appellate instance court which found that “a transaction related to the importation of goods is conditional upon the Ukrainian resident and its non-resident counterparty having a contractual relationship involving the supply (purchase) of the goods […] However, there is no relationship of such kind between the claimant and the unidentified person (persons) to whom […] the payment was erroneously made pursuant to the payment order.”
The Vasil Kisil & Partners team included Managing Partner Andriy Stelmashchuk, Partner Volodymyr Igonin, Senior Associate Yehor Svidlo, and Associates Vasyl Prytula and Alina Ratushna.