NACP unexpectedly paid a reward to the corruption whistleblower: the case involved bribing NABU and SAP leaders.

Today, October 18, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) for the second Time in the history of the Ukrainian institution of disclosure paid a reward to a corruption whistleblower for reporting corruption. It was made based on the decision of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) No. 991/2288/21 of October 2, 2023. This was reported by the NACP press service. 

The case was about an attempt to bribe the leaders of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAP). They were offered $6 million for closing the criminal case under Part 3 of Article 209, Part 5 of Article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, in which the former Minister of Ecology was suspected. 

NABU was investigating a corruption crime under Part 5 of Article 27 Part 4 of Article 369 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The materials regarding the former minister were separated into a separate case (Part 3 of Article 27, Part 4 of Article 369 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). In general, four people were involved in the case. All of them have received sentences by now.

In October 2023, HACC approved the final plea agreement in the case, made between the SAP prosecutor and the former first deputy head of the tax service in Kyiv, and simultaneously approved the payment of a reward to the whistleblower.

The court established that the whistleblower actively contributed to the disclosure of the corruption crime, reported it not within an agreement and is not an accomplice, and ordered the State Treasury authorities to pay a reward in the amount of almost UAH 13.3 million.

“In this high-profile case, the disclosure institution in synergy with the effective work of anti-corruption bodies demonstrated its effectiveness at the top-level corruption. Today we have HACC decisions with adopted sentences for all subjects of the investigation, and the whistleblower in the case received a legally guaranteed reward. It is also noteworthy that the court applied special confiscation in the case. The undue benefit of $6 million was one of the record ones. According to the HACC decision, the entire amount was transferred to the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2022,” said the NACP Chairman Viktor Pavlushchik.

NACP does not indicate the person to whom the funds were transferred today based on the decision of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court (HACC) No. 991/2288/21 of October 2, 2023. However, in an interview with “Hlavkom” the head of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption Victor Pavlushchik stated on October 15 that NACP expects the necessary documents to be provided by the whistleblower (former NABU agent Yevhen Shevchenko, — “Hlavkom”) to the State Treasury Service, and the reward will also be paid.

“By the way, the amount there is much larger – UAH 13.3 million,” Pavlushchik noted.

Recall, the first payment to a corruption whistleblower in the history of Ukraine was made on October 4, 2024.

The reward was paid in accordance with the decision of the Appeals Chamber of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court of November 9, 2023, in case No. 991/2197/224. According to “Hlavkom”, NACP transferred the money on October 2, 2024, in the amount of UAH 1,680,000 to the whistleblower Andriy Andriyovych Boyko.

The possibility of rewarding corruption whistleblowers was introduced in 2019. According to Article 53-7 of the Law of Ukraine “On Prevention of Corruption”, a whistleblower may receive 10% of the monetary value of the corruption crime object or the amount of damages caused to the state from the crime after the court issues a guilty verdict. However, the reward amount cannot exceed three thousand minimum wages established at the time of the crime. So far, courts have made two positive decisions on payments. Currently, both of these decisions have been fully enforced.