Appeal Administrative Court of Kyiv judged that sthe Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine can no longer evade registration of Keramet’s contracts

On February 9, 2016 the Appeal Administrative Court of Kyiv decided to recognize the actions of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine as unlawful and ordered to make a decision on the registration of foreign economic contracts №20032015 of 03.20.2015, №23032015 of 23.03.2015 within 10 days.

 Thus, Keramet has finally gained recognition of unlawfulness of the Ministry actions in relation to the particular company, creating a precedent for other metal scrap exporters, who have faced direct duties evasion by this public agency. There is no practical value of this resolution since the contracts were submitted for registration in the spring of 2015. However, it was literally a matter of principle for Keramet. There was created a dangerous precedent when the Ministry evaded contracts registration under various pretexts. It means that in a situation, when there were no grounds for refusal, the officials did not take any action and blocked the export transactions of the particular enterprise.

It should be noted that Keramet has applied for a registration of export contracts repeatedly. There were no decisions taken on appeals made in October and November 2015, and in February 2016 the Ministry refused even to accept the documents.

We hope that the balance of formation and consumption of ferrous metal scrap for 2016 will be adopted in the nearest future and discrimination against particular suppliers will be eliminated.