A British theatre impresario and her billionaire family are embroiled in a bitter dispute with Ukrainian authorities seeking to seize a water company they jointly own with a Russian oligarch. The row centres on a 34% stake held in the producer of Ukraine’s biggest bottled water brands by the Patarkatsishvili family, including Liana Patarkatsishvili, who recently worked on an immersive show with Toby Jones and Meera Syal. The corporate holdings of IDS Ukraine were frozen by the Ukrainain authorities in 2022 owing to the 49% stake that is also held in the company by Russian investors, including Mikhail Fridman, the founder of the Russian Alfa Group conglomerate.
He is under western sanctions for his support for Vladimir Putin’s regime. Ukraine’s asset recovery and management agency (Arma) has been tasked with instructing independent management to take over the running of the company whose other minority shareholders include the Georgian government. The Ukrainian agency’s head, Yaroslava Maksymenko, said they had repeatedly run into legal and bureaucratic obstacles owing, in part, to the shareholders’ resistance to give up control of their assets.
The agency further claims to have been the subject of a cyber-attack during one attempt to find an independent manager for the company although there is no evidence as to who was responsible and the Patarkatsishvili family is not suspected. However, Maksymenko claimed New World Value Fund Limited, the vehicle for the Patarkatsishvili’s investment in IDS Ukraine, had pursued an unfounded claim of unlawful conduct by Arma’s officials which she said was “misinformation”. An investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine into the claims of unlawful conduct continues.
Maksymenko said her agency had concerns over potential money laundering and value extraction from IDS Ukraine if it remained under the current management although there have not been any official findings of such criminality. There are separate proceedings in the Ukrainian anti-corruption high court in which the shareholders are fighting attempts to nationalise part or all of the ownership of IDS Ukraine, which is seen by some in government as a key strategic asset at a time of war. A spokesperson for the Patarkatsishvili family said they had been committed supporters of Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022, adding that the family were being unfairly targeted and would seek justice in the international courts if necessary.
They said: “The Patarkatsishvili family strongly believes that an asset should not be taken away from non-sanctioned shareholders against whom there are no allegations or concerns, and is defending this position through all relevant proceedings before the Ukrainian courts and authorities. Patarkatsishvili fled to the UK in 2007 but died in 2008 of a heart attack at the age of 52 with an estimated fortune of £6bn. Iya Patarkatsishvili and her husband made headlines last year for being granted a refund after buying a £32m London mansion that was said to be infested with moths.
Last summer, Liana Patarkatsishvili staged a large-scale immersive theatre production called Storehouse about “misinformation” through her production company Sage & Jester, starring the actors Toby Jones and Meera Syal. A spokesperson for IDS Ukraine said: “Throughout its operations, the IDS Ukraine Group of companies has operated and continues to operate in accordance with the requirements of Ukrainian law, including tax and financial legislation. The group continued production and supplied Ukrainian consumers with drinking water even amid continuous missile and drone attacks.” The spokesperson added: “We are aware of statements by the asset recovery and management agency implying but not saying it directly that [a cyber-attack] is somehow connected with the IDS Ukraine Group of companies.
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