Following a lawsuit filed by Alexander Tananakin, an attorney at BARRISTERS LLC, tax assessment notices totaling 408,000 hryvnias were revoked.

By a decision of the Kyiv District Administrative Court, which took legal effect on October 17, 2018, the tax assessment notices issued by the Main Directorate of the State Fiscal Service in Kyiv—based on the results of an unscheduled on-site documentary audit—were revoked.

During the court proceedings in this case, the court determined that matters concerning the handling of food products are governed by the Law of Ukraine “On the Basic Principles and Requirements for the Safety and Quality of Food Products,” which, as of September 20, 2015, no longer requires the submission of conclusions from the State Sanitary and Epidemiological Expertise regarding food products, and therefore the tax authority’s reference to the absence of the aforementioned primary documents during the audit is not based on the requirements of the law.

Furthermore, some of the evidence collected by the tax authority as part of the pretrial investigation in the criminal proceedings—which was used to justify that the business transactions were fictitious—was found to be clearly inadmissible.

The full text of the court decision is available at the following link: http://reyestr.court.gov.ua/Review/75141856