Ukraine Aims To Recover Lost Funds After Taking Ownership Of Privatbank

Ukraine is coming to terms with international lenders to settle an aid agreement concerning the nationalization of Privatbank, the country’s largest lender, Bloomberg reported on Saturday (Nov. 9). 

The relief solution comes as Ukraine promises to recover losses associated with the Privatbank’s nationalization.

The Cabinet Ministers of Ukraine as well as the central bank and Deposit Guarantee Fund “will make every effort” to return the funds spent on compensation of Privatbank depositors, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

A $5 billion three-year loan is being negotiated by the Ukraine government with the International Monetary Fund to stabilize its finances. 

In other Ukraine news, U.S. authorities charged a hacker residing in Ukraine and several others on Jan. 15 with trading on non-public corporate earnings information they got by hacking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR database.

A 16-count indictment filed with the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, the Ukrainian computer hacker, Oleksandr Ieremenko, 27, of Kiev, and others working with him were charged with hacking an SEC database, getting their hands on thousands of “test filings” that included around 157 earnings announcements. The accused hacked into the SEC’s EDGAR database via a Lithuanian server and shared the information with a group of traders, reported Reuters.

The report noted the SEC said the trader group was made up of eight individuals and companies in the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine. The group made $4.1 million in ill-gotten gains from the scam. They traded on the information from May through October of 2016, said the report. In addition to Ieremenko, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Artem Radchenko, a Ukrainian resident accused of recruiting the traders, with computer fraud, wire fraud and other crimes. The SEC has filed civil charges against the defendants, noted Reuters.

Back in September of 2017, the SEC revealed the EDGAR database was hacked, saying that hackers broke in during August to make illegal trades off the information they gleaned.