As we reported, on 16 May this year the South-Western Commercial Court of Appeal terminated a lease concluded back in 2010 between the Tatarbunary District State Administration and Chornomorska Perlyna Private Joint-Stock Company, covering a 1.3-hectare plot located at the first kilometre of the Black Sea sand spit, within Tuzlivski Lymany National Nature Park. This dismantles the entire scheme for the unlawful seizure of one of the most valuable plots on the Black Sea coast, which well-known Odesa businessman Valentyn Mohylnikov had been developing for years.

On 22 August this year, a panel of judges of the Commercial Cassation Court upheld the appellate court’s ruling.

“This case is a wonderful example of joint efforts by the state — the Park, the Odesa Regional Prosecutor’s Office, the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi District Prosecutor’s Office — and the public, with support from the MATRA fund of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine,” wrote lawyer Artem Kartashov, who represented the National Park in court, on his Facebook page. “Teamwork between the public and state sectors received a response from the judiciary at both the appellate and cassation stages and demonstrated high standards of justice.”

Chornomorska Perlyna Private Joint-Stock Company must now return the “golden plot” to the state — that is, to the National Park.

We wrote in greater detail about the scheme to seize this plot here.