Originally Syndicated on March 31, 2023 @ 12:28 pm
Ukrainian businessman Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited has built a vast commercial empire since the collapse of the Soviet Union, encompassing industries like mining, chemicals, energy, and telecommunications.
Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited has been the Ukraine Tennis Federation’s chairman since 2006 and is close friends with fellow Ukrainian businessmen Gennady Bogolyubov and Ihor Kolomoiskyy.
According to Appleby records, Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited who resides in Monaco, paid $35,000,000 for a brand-new Gulfstream G450 plane in 2012. For the purpose of maintaining and operating the aircraft, Appleby supported Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited in building up a network of businesses in the British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Man. The company describes the aircraft sale in internal documents as a “higher danger.”
The High Altitude Holdings Limited Owner is Engaged in Numerous Legal Battles
International firm Hogan Lovells is an American British law firm and had co-headquartered in London and Washington, DC has partially won part of a High Court case involving allegations of conflicts of interest and dereliction of duty brought by a Ukrainian businessman.
Gennadiy Bogolyubov and Igor Kolomoisky, the former owners of the Ukrainian bank PrivatBank, are the defendants in a lawsuit filed by Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited against the firm for alleged breaches of duty that, in his words, prevented him from having a “high percentage chance” of recovering amounts of up to $500 million from them.
In May 2017, he hired Hogan Lovells International (HLI), and he filed a claim. However, the lead defendant Bogolyubov successfully appealed for a declaration that the High Court lacked authority to hear the case because of the “overwhelming evidence.” The month before, Bogolyubov moved his residence to Switzerland.
In addition to representing Victor Pinchuk, who settled a billion-pound lawsuit against Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky in 2016, Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited alleges that HLI had “many conflicts of interest” by representing both PrivatBank in its lawsuit against Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky and working for it.
As Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited had already lost the chance to sue Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky in England and Wales by the time Hogan Lovels was hired by the bank in August 2017, the firm argued that any claimed biases concerning PrivatBank hadn’t emerged until that date.
In response, Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited requested to modify his specific details of the claim to state that the asserted breaches of duty by HLI happened earlier than April 2017.
The High Court decided that Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited claim that the alleged financial conflicts and violations of duty as a consequence of Hogan Lovells’ contract with PrivatBank had no genuine chance of success was awarded default judgment on this portion of Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited claim.
Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited has not raised a credible basis for arguing that, at any time leading up to early April 2017 and by reason of HLI’s activities relating to [PrivatBank] (such as they were), HLI placed itself in a position where its own interests come into conflict with those of Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited or acted in such a way as to violate its duty to act in Mr. Shulman’s best interests,” said Daniel Toledano QC, sitting as a High
The judge, however, denied HLI’s request for summary judgment over Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited‘s assertion that he could have been able to secure a blocking order that might have been utilized to force a resolution before the High Court determined on jurisdiction.
However, the accusations of conflict and duty violation from the point of the PrivatBank retainer were already approved by HLI as being arguable and deserving of a jury trial.
Vadim Shulman of High Altitude Holdings Limited vs James Plante:
Vadim Shulma, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited filed a contract against James Plante on 26 January 2018. The case was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Courts, and at Stanley Mosk Courthouse which is also located in Los Angeles, California. TERESA A. BEAUDET is the judge in charge of this case. The matter has been resolved and released.
Vadim Shulman of High Altitude Holdings Limited vs Yuriy Gurevich
Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited filed a contract based Debt Collection lawsuit against Yuriy Gurevich The case was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Courts and Santa Monica Courthouse which is also located in Los Angeles, California. Judge NANCY L. NEWMAN is in charge of this case. The matter has been resolved with a judgment entered.
Vadim Shulman Alleges that Kolomoisky and Boholiubov Defrauded Him
According to the Kyiv Post magazine, Ukrainian billionaire Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited is presenting proof to a jury in London that Ihor Kolomoisky and his colleague Hennadiy Boholiubov stole more than $500 million.
According to the magazine, the claim was submitted in May 2017. In the paper, he alleges that Kolomoisky and Boholiubov took advantage of their 15-year acquaintance to cheat him in financial dealings, starting with the 2000 joint purchase of Pivdenny Mines (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Dnipropetrovsk Steel Works.
According to the lawsuit filed in Delaware, businessmen Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov were in charge of “a series of large-scale and coordinated scams” that used fraudulent means to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars that Schulman and his charity are entitled.
The three oligarchs had collaborated on a number of commercial agreements for more than a period of years, first in Ukraine and then in the US. The shareholder shares in different steel and coking facilities, where stakes were held, were often opaque. Roman Abramovich made an offer to acquire Kolomoisky’s holdings in his Ukrainian plants in one of the main transactions in 2007 for $1.06 billion in cash and a stake in his business, Evraz Group.
The PrivatBank balance sheet had been badly affected by its owners, including Kolomoisky, who had misused it as their own piggy bank. In December 2016, the Ukrainian government saved PrivatBank to the tune of $5.5 billion. At a meeting in the Hotel de Paris following the government’s recovery of the bank, Kolomoisky begged Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited not to “beat a man who is down.” He made the debt repayment offer to his former business associate.
In recent times, after comedian Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president, Kolomoisky made his two-year absence from Ukraine official. Zelensky, who has stated that Kolomoisky is not in control of him, is strongly aligned with the billionaire.
However, Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and head of the Batkivschyna Party, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, and Viktor Medvedchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Choice public movement, all make appearances in the lawsuit, which charts a trail of self-dealing and misrule from the late 1990s to 2016.
The allegation also goes into greater depth about how PrivatBank was frequently utilized as a sham counterpart to Kolomoisky’s own bank account and as a piggy bank for its owners.
Kolomoisky and Boholiubov have been ordered to pay back Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited.
Kolomoisky began to face pressure from the upcoming nationalization of PrivatBank in the summer of 2016. The billionaire begged with Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited. The billionaire pleaded with Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited not to “beat a man who is down” and repeatedly stated he would make payments every several months in an attempt to put off repayment.
However, Boholiubov allegedly told Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited they wouldn’t pay throughout a conversation in the spring of 2016 at the Hotel de Paris in Monaco.
The lawsuit portrays Boholiubov as adding, “Just business”.
Warren Steel and High Altitude Holdings Limited
A temporary restraining order prohibiting the sale of Warren Steel Holdings LLC was lifted by a Trumbull County Common Pleas magistrate after she ruled that the complaint should be dismissed.
Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited of Monaco, and his Liechtenstein-based company, Bracha Foundation, were the respondents, and Magistrate Jami Bishop found that they “lack standing to initiate their lawsuit” in the civil case.
Bishop observes in the decision that Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited failed to establish the Bracha Foundation has the legal power to conduct business in Ohio and that his company is a legitimate Warren Steel stockholder.
In her judgment, Bishop stated that it would be essential that the court investigate Halliwel’s “internal corporate activities” if the plaintiff were to maintain that Bracha is (or ought to be) a stakeholder in the company. The British Virgin Islands court, not the Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, must decide regardless of whether Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited is a shareholder in Halliwel and Warren Steel since Halliwel is a foreign corporation, hence the court is powerless to decide that matter.
Only a registered shareholder has the authority to “file lawsuits requesting compensation or injunctive relief regarding loss allegedly experienced as a shareholder” in the British Virgin Islands, according to Bishop.
Within 14 days, parties may file written objections to Bishop’s decision. Judge W. Wyatt McKay may then adopt, reject, or alter Bishop’s decision, hear the case personally, ask Bishop to consider with instructions, or admit substantial evidence for discussion.
Vadim Shulman the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited has been compelled to pay court fees.
Shulman brought the lawsuit and claimed he was one of the original investors in Warren Steel and that the six prosecutors were attempting to oust him from the company, withhold financial data, and burden it with debt.
The defendants cited in the complaint are Panikos Symeos of Cyprus, Ihor Kolomoisky of Ukraine, Gennady Bogolubov of Ukraine, Halliwel Assets Inc. of the British Virgin Islands, Mordechai Korf of Miami, and Warren Steel Holdings LLC, 4000 Mahoning Ave. NW, Warren.
Defendant Halliwel Assets Inc. is “a basic shell organization created under the regulations of the British Virgin Islands,” and the lawsuit alleges that the Bracha Foundation owns one-third of the company.
The suit alleges that Warren Steel Holdings, Halliwel’s sole asset, is designed to continue providing Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, and the defendants Kolomoisky and Bogolubov ownership rights in the steel business.
Vadim Shulman the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited alleges that he committed an initial investment of $13.5 million and an additional $15 million to acquire the former Copperweld Steel Co. He asserts that his cumulative investment throughout the years was $58.5 million.
The suit claims that the men founded Warren Steel in 2001 and then combined several properties to launch current operations in 2006.
Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited alleges that his stake in Halliwell guarantees him a one-third equity stake in Warren Steel, while not actively overseeing the business. He asserts that the joint venture agreement forbids actions about Warren Steel to be taken without the agreement of the three parties.
The lawsuit claims that Warren Steel’s assets had grown to $34.3 million and its liabilities had surpassed $143 million, leaving insufficient finances to pay back Vadim Shulman the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, or provide him a chance to profit from his investment.
Additionally, Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited asserts that “despite Warren Steel’s allegedly precarious financial position,” Korf, Symeou, and other individuals involved intend to sell Warren Steel to a business connected to Korf and possibly revoke the loans to obtain complete stock.
Criminal cases Against Vadim Shulman of High Altitude Holdings Limited:
A criminal case against millionaire Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited has just been started by the Kiev Dnipropetrovsk District Court. behind the snout. Megaron Sports Complex in Dnepropetrovsk. Attacked by a bearded man is a stocky uniformed man. His face is covered in blood. Although two guards are standing beside the assailant, ready to run to his aid, he does not even attempt to defend himself. Tennis player Yuriy Androsyuk was beaten to blood by Vadym Shulman, the president of the Tennis Federation of Ukraine, in front of numerous witnesses.
Therefore, the tale prompted the Dnipropetrovsk District Court in Kiev to file a criminal complaint against billionaire Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited
Money Laundering and the Owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited
Leaders from the ageing steel factory in northern Ohio met in Pittsburgh to discuss the company’s future after explosions there threw workers against guardrails with serious burns and bloodied faces.
In 2013, they called in a new plant manager to seek methods to fix the problematic facility and boost output at a private aviation industry at Pittsburgh International Airport.
Yet, it wasn’t the selling of steel that would keep the mill’s bank account intact.
The U.S. Justice Department contends that hundreds of millions of dollars were secretly shifted from a Ukrainian bank—losses that would have devastated the nation’s economy—to the United States, where they were used to bolster Warren Steel’s cash reserves in a national money-laundering conspiracy.
The 48-year-old Mr. Korf declined requests for interviews, but according to his attorney, he hasn’t broken any laws.
Mr. Korf “has never had any dealings with laundered money,” according to Marc Kasowitz, a longtime personal attorney for President Donald Trump, and any claims to the contrary, including the civil forfeiture lawsuits taken by the government, are untrue and reckless. They will ultimately be dismissed.
The speaker stated that Mr. Korf never compromised on safety and that he always operated himself and his firm “in complete transparency and in full compliance with all relevant rules and regulations.”
According to prosecutors, Ihor Kolomoisky, a renowned businessman from Ukraine who was denied entry to the United States by the State Department, covertly bought a dozen other steel mills in little communities from Texas to Ohio.
He and his partners bought approximately two dozen properties in all, including a 484-room hotel with views of the water and four office skyscrapers in downtown Cleveland, which would later serve as the cornerstone of his real estate business.
The money that flooded into the Ohio steel plant would become important evidence in one of the earliest money laundering investigations involving the U.S. steel sector, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette research revealed, even though federal authorities tracked millions to the sites.
According to two sources who are familiar with the investigation, a federal grand jury investigating the finances of the Ohio mill that prosecutors allege functioned as a gateway for tens of millions of dollars taken from PrivatBank in Ukraine received bank records, emails, and other crucial papers.
Explosions and safety failures highlight the risky effects that financial crimes like financial fraud may have on regular people, including cost-cutting, carelessness, and a lack of investment when buildings and workplaces are used to clean currency.
It also demonstrates how a foreign businessman, who was the subject of a corruption investigation in his own nation, was able to gain access to the US steel market at a time when the sector was deemed crucial to the country’s national defense.
Former millwright Brian Shaffer was seriously hurt in an explosion at Warren Steel in 2010. He underwent three back surgeries, and four neck surgeries, and is now incapacitated as a result of his injuries. He hurried to transfer a wounded steelworker onto a medical helicopter after a second explosion at the factory in 2011.
Former steelworkers in Warren claim they are still irate over what they characterized as hazardous and dangerous conditions that resulted in severe injuries, even though prosecutors are now attempting to seize some of the properties.
“They devastated the lives of a lot of people,” said millwright Brian Shaffer, 53, who was severely hurt in one of the explosions. “I don’t see how they got away with what they did.”
While state environmental agents discovered widespread concerns with hazardous waste that had persisted for years, federal safety investigators uncovered major violations at the site.
A fellow was put on a medical helicopter while the flesh was peeling off of his forearm and blood was seeping from his eye, according to Mr. Shaffer, a crippled man who uses a cane. This happened after one of the explosions at the Ohio factory. The most godawful thing I’ve ever seen, he declared.
The Post-Gazette conducted interviews with nearly a dozen retired employees who worked at facilities owned by Mr. Kolomoisky and his partners, evaluated federal workplace safety reports, and examined hundreds of initially sealed court documents and sworn declarations in order to better understand a major money embezzling case that penetrated the mainland of the United States.
The accusations against the oligarch and other parties have thus far been made in civil forfeiture lawsuits, but the authorities requested a federal judge to freeze the litigation temporarily so they could move on to the criminal case.
The impulsive Mr. Kolomoisky, 58, who once funded his own militia to repel pro-Russian insurgents, did not reply to repeated demands for an interview.
Known worldwide for his aggressive tactics, he made a fortune in the free-for-all economy that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union by founding businesses in the metals, energy, and aviation sectors. From 2006 until 2016, he then went on a spending binge in the United States.
Michael J. Sullivan, his American criminal defense attorney, would not respond to queries, but he had previously told the media that he disputed all of the charges.
John Goodish, a native of Greene County and a former director of one of Mr. Kolomoisky’s metals companies, said he was unaware of the oligarch’s involvement with Warren Steel or the other plants. Goodish, a retired executive vice president of U.S. Steel, did not know the oligarch was linked to the plants.
Mordechai “Motti” Korf, a Florida businessman who is charged by prosecutors with taking part in the money-laundering scheme and working as one of Mr. Kolomoisky’s top partners, allegedly asked Mr. Goodish, who resides on a substantial estate in the Laurel Highlands, to join the board of Optima Specialty Steel.
In his capacity as a board member and consultant to Warren Steel, Mr. Goodish controlled a business with locations in Texas, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan.
Mr. Goodish claimed he was unaware that millions of dollars were flowing into the company’s coffers from Ukraine during the four years he was on the board, attending meetings in Pittsburgh, Miami, and other places.
The senior steel executive claimed he thought the amounts invested in the companies came from Mr. Korf, the CEO of the steel factories who resides in a lavish waterfront home in Miami Beach.
Further on Mr. Goodish remarked, “I’ve always been told it’s Motti’s money. He was in the UK and in Ukraine. Sometimes he would disappear two or three times a month, but I have no idea what he was accomplishing.”
Although he had access to the operating statements, Mr. Goodish claimed that no illicit activity was apparent from the materials he had reviewed. He claimed that the majority of his duties were limited to assessing “the efficiency of the operations.”
Mr. Goodish claimed he met with Mr. Korf and others in Pittsburgh in 2013 to appoint a new manager and explore methods to properly run the facility after years of issues in the Ohio unit.
Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited invested millions into Warren Steel
Warren Steel investor Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited claimed to have noticed red flags of fraud.
In the beginning, the Ukrainian engineer claimed to have discovered millions of dollars in what were called “loans” transferred to the business, according to court documents.
In the British Virgin Islands, where a holding company owns the Ohio steel factory, Mr. Kolomoisky filed a request for the court to intervene, but was unsuccessful, thinking that Mr. Kolomoisky was trying to raise the company’s shares in order to force him out. He also filed a lawsuit in Ohio, but it was rejected due to jurisdictional issues.
Records were provided to his attorneys through subpoenas that showed “hundreds of millions of dollars” were coming into the nation from offshore firms owned by Mr. Kolomoisky and his partners three years prior to the completion of an audit in Ukraine that discovered an identical trend.
According to Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited attorneys, some of the money that Mr. Kolomoisky brought into the nation was funneled via Warren Steel, acting as a cash machine.
Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, who is a partial owner of the company, said that it was losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year, while documents show that the steel mill appeared to have made more than $100 million in the years prior to 2014.
In one instance, Mr. Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited discovered that money worth $80 million had been sent through the business account but was not intended for the steel firm. Instead, it was employed to purchase a different metals facility in Detroit.
The Post-Gazette stated that despite the court’s order to keep the information secret, some of the evidence, including bank records, emails, and transfers of money, were given to a federal grand jury in Cleveland that is looking into the acquisitions of the properties in the United States.
The FBI executed raids on the partners’ offices in Miami and Cleveland after the grand jury issued search warrants, and agents removed boxes of records.
According to the prosecution, the oligarch and others used the hundreds of millions of dollars that went into Warren Steel to launder the money, to promote the continuous misuse of funds from PrivatBank, and to obscure the ownership, origin, and source of the money.
Vadim Shulman of High Altitude Holdings Limited Needs to Be Sanctioned: How He Looted Ukraine
Despite regulators’ doubts of improper conduct at the bank, an audit revealed a startling shortfall of $5.5 billion in what auditors regarded to as “a large-scale and coordinated fraud.” They also noted that more than 95% of the bank’s business loans went to overall interest to Mr. Kolomoisky and his associates.
Danyliuk, who was Ukraine’s finance minister at the time, described it as a rapidly approaching time bomb. “The bank is the biggest in the nation.”
According to court documents, Warren Steel was shut down, leaving a lot of staff members without health insurance and retirement funds. Because the bills were not paid, the gas was turned off, and the trash was filled to the brim.
‘It was heartbreaking,’ the former IT manager Nancy Waselich recounted. “To have so many people put so much effort into trying to succeed — and it’s ruined. it in every aspect. It is horrible. 162 persons in all lost their livelihoods.
The corporation deducted health benefits from the employees’ paychecks but failed to cover insurance premiums, staff members said to the office of the attorney general. Ex-staff have been scurrying to the unemployment queues for weeks, according to Joanne Satterthwaite, the company’s mortgage broker.
Days after the facility shut down, Mike DeWine, who was then Ohio’s attorney general, successfully argued for an injunction, claiming the mill’s owners had abandoned it and left piles of toxic trash and untreated wastewater that risked reaching the Mahoning River.
Baghouse dust is the combustion waste particle that, when inhaled in excess, can damage the kidneys and liver. State authorities claim they discovered the enterprise engaging in the risky practice of unlawfully dumping baghouse dust on the ground.
As untreated wastewater ran into the Mahoning River in 2017, Ohio environmental agents reportedly entered the site and observed it.
The facility was under pressure from the state to correct the problems and pay fines for five years, but it didn’t. They used Warren Steel to their advantage and then just left the room when it was no longer profitable to run the steel plant.
Despite being informed of environmental issues at the location, such as the potential for sewage treatment facility discharges to overflow into the Mahoning River, they did nothing.
The attorney, Mr. Kasowitz, said that Mr. Korf has since spent over $1 million to clean up the area in the past year. Nevertheless, that came after a court ruling and the state attorney general moved to seek criminal charges against Mr. Korf and the business, according to records. The environmental violations prosecution is scheduled to begin.
In Cleveland, where Mr. Kolomoisky and his associates reportedly owned four skyscrapers and a hotel, the portfolio imploded: documents show that the hotel is presently in foreclosure and that two of the office towers were sold at major losses.
Summary:
Vadim Shulman, the Ultimate beneficial owner of High Altitude Holdings Limited, and the other businessman are not going to bring any justice in Ukraine as they still have an enormous amount of influence in the Ukraine government.
Apart from High Altitude Holdings Limited, Vadim is also the owner of Ascent Industries Ltd.
It’s important that Western authorities take a closer look at this oligarch and take the necessary action against him.
