London court: Monobank owner Oleh Horokhovskyi approved $1.9 billion in loans for schemes of oligarchs Kolomoiskyi and Boholyubov
At the end of July, the High Court of London issued a ruling in the case of PryvatBank against Ihor Kolomoiskyi and Hennadiy Boholyubov. According to the court, the businessmen, through credit agreements with related companies, withdrew over 1.9 billion dollars from the bank. Monobank co-founder Oleh Horokhovskyi was the deputy chairman of PryvatBank’s board at the time and approved 129 credit agreements. Despite this, NABU and other Ukrainian law enforcement agencies seem indifferent to Horokhovskyi, unlike his colleagues from that period.
In the British court ruling, Oleh Horokhovskyi is mentioned as a member of PyivatBank’s credit committee, one of the bank’s key officials who participated in approving credit agreements. The future founder of Monobank was among those who approved 129 out of 134 questionable agreements, through which 1 billion 911 million 877 thousand 385 dollars were withdrawn from the bank and not returned. The other 5 agreements were approved in Horokhovskyi’s absence. Interestingly, the credit committee (ECC), concerned about the bank’s reputation, should have rejected such agreements, but it did not, as, according to court data, the management primarily acted in the interests of the bank’s owners rather than the bank itself.
According to the court case, the funds were issued to 47 Ukrainian and 3 Cypriot companies, which were effectively controlled by or belonged to the then-owners of PrivatBank, businessmen from Dnipro, Ihor Kolomoiskyi and Hennadiy Boholyubov. In the future, this scheme led to the nationalization of PryvatBank by the state.
In addition, the court case states that Horokhovskyi, already as a founder of Monobank, maintained friendly and business relations with Igor Kolomoisky, sought his advice, visited him twice in Switzerland, and flew on his plane from Tel Aviv to Dnipro in June 2019.
Along with other managers of the bank at the time, Horokhovskyi is characterized as someone who was accustomed to carrying out the instructions of PryvatBank’s owners during his tenure at the institution. Whether close relations continued after June 2019 is not mentioned in the case.
It is quite interesting to look at the fates of the former owners and ex-management of PryvatBank:
Igor Kolomoisky has been in pretrial detention in Kyiv since 2023. In 2023, NABU notified him and 5 other individuals of suspicion of misappropriating 9.2 billion UAH of PryvatBank funds.
There is also a suspicion from the SSU and BES regarding the illegal withdrawal and laundering of 500 million UAH from PryvatBank accounts between 2013 and 2020. NABU and SAPO have seized the oligarch’s assets. In February 2025, the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine imposed sanctions on Kolomoiskyi and blocked his assets.
Hennadiy Boholyubov left Ukraine for Austria at the end of June 2024. Later, he received a suspicion notice from the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) for illegal border crossing and possession of someone else’s passport (allegedly used to leave Ukraine). In February 2025, sanctions were imposed on Boholyubov by the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, and his assets were blocked.
Former chairman of PryvatBank’s board, Oleksandr Dubilet, resides in Israel. In 2021, NABU declared him wanted. The businessman is suspected of embezzling 9.2 billion UAH from PryvatBank accounts during his tenure there. The criminal scheme involved an organized group artificially creating an obligation for the bank to pay over 9.2 billion UAH to a controlled company for the alleged repurchase of its own bonds at an inflated price, through the falsification of relevant documents. Part of these funds, specifically over 446 million UAH, was laundered through transactions disguised as securities trading to Kolomoiskyi’s personal account via a series of financial operations with controlled companies, and subsequently contributed by him to the bank’s authorized capital to meet the requirements of PryvatBank’s financial recovery program. The remaining funds were disposed of by the perpetrators at their discretion. Incidentally, Dubilet signed and approved 115 out of the 134 credit agreements with related companies.
Former first deputy chairman of PryvatBank’s board, Volodymyr Yatsenko, was detained at Boryspil Airport on February 22, 2021, while attempting to flee to Vienna. He is suspected of embezzling 136 million UAH from PryvatBank before its nationalization. However, on the same day, he was released on a bail of 52 million UAH. In August 2022, Yatsenko left Ukraine as a “person with a Group 2 disability” and has not returned. Like Oleh Horokhovskyi, he approved 129 credit agreements.
Lyudmyla Shmalchenko, former deputy chairman of PryvatBank’s board and former co-founder of Monobank, was declared wanted in 2023 after being released from pretrial detention on a bail of 50 million UAH. According to media reports, she left Ukraine in 2022. She is suspected in the same case as Oleksandr Dubilet, involving the withdrawal of 9.2 billion UAH from the bank.
Former first deputy chairman of PryvatBank’s board, Tymur Novikov, who was responsible for the investment business, lived in Switzerland as of 2019. According to sources, he remains abroad. Although there are no criminal cases against him, he approved 127 questionable credit agreements. In 2021, media circulated information that investigative bodies were gathering data on the activities of other former top officials of PryvatBank, including Tymur Novikov and former deputy chairmen Yuriy Pikush and Tetyana Huryeva (who also approved these credit agreements related to the London court case).
However, Oleh Horokhovskyi has not fled anywhere and faces no legal issues or sanctions. He maintains a mostly positive image and public recognition, often mentioned in the media. At the beginning of 2024, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy established the Council for Entrepreneurship Support, which included Oleh Horokhovskyi. It remains unclear who from the business community selected the representatives for this council.
It should be noted that in the High Court of London case, the defendants are Ihor Kolomoiskyi and Hennadiy Boholyubov, who received funds through their bank and with the assistance of their subordinates. According to the court’s decision, they must return the funds to the bank. The bank’s top managers are not defendants. The purpose of this case was not to prove the involvement of the then-board members or other bank officials in money withdrawal schemes.
Incidentally, in December 2019, Horokhovskyi filed a lawsuit against PryvatBank, the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine, and the Deposit Guarantee Fund. He owned 0.38% of the bank’s shares before nationalization. Other former top managers of Kolomoiskyi and Boholyubov’s bank did the same, demanding that the nationalization of PryvatBank be declared illegal and the bank returned to its former owners. However, in September 2022, Horokhovskyi withdrew his lawsuit.
Court proceedings in London
PryvatBank was nationalized by the state in December 2016. The main owners, who controlled about 90% of the bank’s shares, were Dnipro natives Ihor Kolomoiskyi and Hennadiy Boholyubov. After nationalization, the state and the Ministry of Finance had to inject 116.8 billion UAH into the bank to keep it afloat and save it from collapse, although the total budget expenditures on the bank were higher.
In 2017, the now state-owned PryvatBank filed a lawsuit in the High Court of England and Wales (also known as the High Court of London) against its former co-owners, Boholyubov and Kolomoiskyi. The bank’s goal is to compel the former owners to return the funds withdrawn from the bank as loans to a number of commercial firms linked to the ex-owners. Now, PryvatBank will begin the process of recovering damages—at least 1.7 billion USD.
Founders of Monobank
In January 2017, former top managers of PryvatBank established the company “Fintech Band,” with shareholders including Oleksandr Dubilet, Oleh Horokhovsky, Dmytro Dubilet, Mykhailo Rohalskyi, Volodymyr Yatsenko, Lyudmyla Shmalchenko, and Vadym Kovalyov. Subsequently, this company developed the neobank Monobank, which has been operating under the license of Universal Bank, owned by Serhiy Tihipko—a former PryvatBank executive from earlier years—since November 2017. Over time, the shareholders of “Fintech Band” changed, but Horokhovskyi remained and continues to make key decisions.
Oleksandr Dubilet, Volodymyr Yatsenko, and Lyudmyla Shmalchenko are defendants in cases involving the embezzlement of funds from PryvatBank. They are abroad and have sold their shares in Monobank.
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