27.07.2009
In December 1993, Deputy Head of the Administration of Rostov region Alexey Homyakov addressed me with an earnest request to buy shares of Atommash OJSC at the Russia-wide voucher auction. He assured me that nuclear energy is the future, and that’s why the horrible Chernobyl disaster of 26.04.1986 will not stop the development of nuclear engineering in Russia and abroad. Homyakov convinced me, and Firm YACONTO LLP acquired a huge share of Atommash OJSC.
However, already since mid-1994 YACONTO started receiving alarming information regarding the Atommash OJSC business. Not having received the promised dividends in 1994, I decided to introduce Firm YACONTO LLP to the Board of Directors of Atommash OJSC. On the next Annual General Meeting of shareholders, which took place on 07.04.1995, Firm YACONTO LLP received three seats in the Board of Directors out of nine, after which I was elected Chairman of the Board (Protocol №1). Some of the Board members voted for me because they believed I will be a “dummy” Chairman.
Since taking office, I started actively collecting information about real state of affairs on Atommash in 1992–1994. However, the executive management strenuously concealed this information, and not just from me but also from thousands of shareholders and the State. Their reluctance to provide the requested documents was clearly not accidental. That prompted me to start a complete reorganization of the management system and control over Atommash OJSC, including: accounting transparency, analysis and justification of debtor/creditor contracts, personnel changes and ensuring openness and accessibility of information on the activities of Atommash OJSC and its Board of Directors for many thousands of minority shareholders by the involving mass media of Volgodonsk city.
The main problem to be solved in order to pull Atommash OJSC out of its economic and production crisis was to provide work for production capacities of the industrial complex with large long-term contracts. At that time such contracts could only be obtained outside “collapsing” Russia – in the Asian, African and Near Eastern countries. But it was contrary to the plans of the Organized criminal group (OCG) which sought to bankrupt Atommash OJSC for their own benefit and in favor of the “customers” of the destruction of this unique “plant of the plants”.
In mid-June 1995, General Director of Atommash OJSC Alexey Golovin visited the Moscow office of Firm YACONTO LLP. At a confidential meeting with me, Golovin strongly asked me to bring up, on the Board of Directors, the topic of removing the President of Atommash OJSC Valentin Egorov from his position, since the latter, allegedly, doesn’t let him manage industrial and economic activities of the company. Golovin confidentially offered me a amount in U.S. dollars to be paid monthly, if Egorov is removed from the office and the Board of Directors doesn’t mess up with the activities of the executive management of Atommash OJSC. However, Firm YACONTO LLP was the biggest shareholder of Atommash OJSC after the State, and I wasn’t a “dummy Chairman” in this industrial giant (which is common practice in Russia), therefore I strongly rejected Golovin’s offer.
After talking to Alexey Golovin, I gave instructions to start collecting information about the activities of Atommash OJSC for me even more thoroughly. On the meetings of the Board of Directors of 23.06.1995 (Protocol №4) and 31.07.1995 (Protocol №5) I strongly demanded that the executive management of Atommash OJSC submits a detailed report of the production and economic activities and debtor-creditor situation, introduces a new management control system approved by the Board of Directors and solves other equally important issues.
It was no coincidence that Alexey Golovin was the only one who spoke against the new framework of management on Atommash OJSC, since he was the one who was leading the nuclear engineering flagship to bankruptcy, together with his OCG accomplices. This is confirmed by multiple documents, and in particular, by the Reconciliation Statement of accounts payable by Atommash OJSC to VB CB Doninvest dated 22.07.1995 and the Letter from VB CB Doninvest to the Board of Directors of Atommash OJSC (out. №1891 of 31.07.1995), as well as withdrawal of liquid assets through writedowns, theft, markdowns and sales – for a pittance – of property, technological equipment, strategic reserves of ferrous and nonferrous metals, through manipulations with barter products, loans, securities, and so on. Contracts for production of industrial goods (items), which were very beneficial to Atommash OJSC, were instead executed by different LLPs on the premises of Atommash, dealing damage to the company, its shareholders and the State; Alexey Golovin was the one who facilitated that.
Due to malevolent activities of specific officials, the financial, economical and production activities of Atommash OJSC were rapidly deteriorating, so I submitted my Statement (out. №5-9-PAYA from 05.09.1995) to the Prosecutor of Volgodonsk city Nikolay Volitskiy. The Statement informed about illegal activities of the executives of Atommash OJSC and the damage they caused to the State and the shareholders. In two days, on 07.09.1995, there was a Meeting of the Board of Directors of Atommash OJSC, where progress report of the executive management was to be reviewed. Members of the Board of Directors mentioned in the Statement, scared by my decisive actions, expressed no confidence in me.
The grounds for their “no confidence” statement were set by the cynical, misinforming Notification, forged by Alexey Golovin on 06.09.1995 and registered before the Board Meeting on 07.09.1995. Under a false pretext, on 07.09.1995 the members who were present voted for my dismissal from the position of the Chairman of the Board of Atommash OJSC for an alleged “abuse of authority”.
Thus the OCG members deprived me of control and opportunity to oppose their illegal activities, and restricted direct access to the documents on the illegal depreciation and sale of liquid assets of Atommash OJSC for a song. And the verification of specific facts of their criminal activities on terms of my Statement to the Prosecutor of Volgodonsk city (out. №5-9-PAYA from 05.09.1995), in turn, was blocked by the administrative resource and “mutual guarantees” at the disposal of OCG.
The key initiators, abettors and participants of the bankruptcy fraud of Atommash OJSC were: the General Director of Atommash OJSC Alexey Golovin; First Vice President (as of 1996, General Director) of Energomashcorporatsiya OJSC (RF, Moscow) Alexander Stepanov; the head of Federal Office for Insolvency (Bankruptcy) Proceedings for Rostov region Tatyana Gramotenko; Governor of Rostov region Vladimir Chub and other OCG participants on federal and regional levels.
OCG members facilitated the bankruptcy of Atommash OJSC, illegally utilized law enforcement agencies to prevent the investigation, and covered this crime. It was practically impossible to oppose the arbbitrariness and lawlessness that took place on Atommash OJSC without the involvement of the Supreme leadership of the State, as YACONTO LLC communicated in its Letter to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin (out. №1/15-10-PYA from 15.10.2000) which, as well as the Letter from YACONTO LLC (out. №80116-1 from 16.01.2008) never reached Putin due to active resistance of the corrupt officials in the State structures of power.
Sergey P. Yakunin, President of YACONTO LLC