The Lord of Arbitrations: Who is Ivan Kondov from the Judicial Protection Directorate?

Serious violations information security and assignments to Specific contractors. No internal rules – One person decides criteria, conducts the competitions, makes the awards and absolutely decides for himself whether and what the payments should be… these scandalous data were presented by the Minister of Finance Assen Vassilev in response to questions about the arbitration cases of the State More precisely, after the decision the Judicial Protection Directorate to be moved from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to the Ministry of Justice.

But who is this person with both the bread and the knife, as if he does not have any laws and rules for public procurement? BIRD has already highlighted it in a previous post. It is Ivan, but not God’s instrument (former) which has already passed into politics to save Bulgaria. No, this ubiquitous “financial instrument” is Ivan Kondov, which commands the parade in the Ministry of Finance, in particular in the Judicial Protection Directorate. This is a little-known directorate in the Ministry of Finance, but it is extremely important. She is solely responsible for the protection of the state financial interest in international arbitration cases in which Bulgaria is a defendant. And they are neither small nor for small money. BIRD has been developing the topic for some time, but Assen Vassilev’s revelations served as an accelerator and catalyst, figuratively speaking.

A directorate and a pie for many millions

So what is this about? Kondov has been the director of the directorate in question for at least 20 years – basically, Unalterable. Irremovable is also the law firm, which he invariably and consistently employs to defend Bulgaria in arbitration cases – namely, White & Case. Before someone accuses us of lobbying, let’s face it – we don’t give a damn whether the law firm is called White & Case or Black & Pink, or Ivan, Dragan & Petkan. However, we are interested in whether there is somewhere (well hidden) corruption. And here everything says that there is something. The scheme is as follows. The U.S. law firm — which is one of the most powerful in the world — charges between $500 and $1,000 per hour. Let’s say that this is a standard tariff for a law firm of this caliber. Only that’s not the point. White & Case have Bulgarian law firm
subcontractor
, Tomov & Tomov, which is also eternal and irremovable. In fact, they do a considerable amount of work, especially related to documents available only in Bulgarian, but this amount of work is also charged at the tariff White & Case. However, it would be logical for a law firm based entirely in Bulgaria to charge lower tariffs. It would be logical to ask, therefore, whether part of this tariff is not returned as a “kickback” in some direction – be it the Ministry of Finance, Bankya or someone’s seraglio. For now, this remains a pending issue that we will continue to work on. In this regard, we think, without connection, not only of Bankya – but also of Yarem and the expensive
villa
of a Vladi there, as well as for
the clock
For $30,000. But that’s another topic. And of course, completely without a link to the topic is the reference from the Property Register, according to which the modest civil servant Ivan Kondov acquired in 2019 without a mortgage loan an apartment and a garage in Sofia for nearly half a million leva.

By the way, here it is worth remembering something from 7 years ago, just after Bulgaria lost the arbitration against the Russians for over BGN 1 billion, on the occasion of the “corruption pool” Belene NPP. While the government — that is, Borisov — was wondering whether to appeal, Russian media publications

that Boyko Borisov has taken $ 50 million in bribesto allow the Russian VTB to swallow BTC (after the bankruptcy of CCB). Soon after, Bulgaria quickly paid over 1 billion leva to the Russians – and Russian publications abruptly stopped. In material of Grigor Lilov all this was carefully analyzed, incl. A letter from White & Case was published in which they “advise” us not to appeal to the Swiss Supreme Court. How comfortable! Any similarities with the current case are coincidental, of course, incl. And that the American law firm is still the same.

But back to the present. According to our information, in fact Ivan Kondov rarely participates in the cases themselves. In arbitration cases before the World Bank Tribunal ICSID, there may be one or more hearings, and the interim hearings are usually not in person but by videoconference (attendance are held in Washington). At these meetings Ivan appears extremely rarely, which we find mildly strange. On the rare occasions when present, it is rather in the role of ficus That is, he is very careful not to lose a word. From which they follow Two logical questionsIs Ivan silent because he doesn’t know what to say, or is he silent because he doesn’t know English? If it’s the first, it’s bad, if it’s the second, even worse. That is, in both cases it is incompetence – in the first – relative, in the second – absolute. Which makes us wonder what exactly Ivan is doing in this position. 

Ivan’s “Successes”

One of the main counter-theses against the reform of the directorate in the Ministry of Finance is that Kondov and friends had not a single lost case. However, this is not true – and we will prove it. Exactly eight years ago, Goranov proudly announced that Bulgaria had won the lawsuit brought against the state by the Dutch Novera Properties. Unfortunately, however, this is a pure lie. We will quote the following key passage from the operative part of the arbitral award, which says it all: “The Tribunal declares that the actions and statements of the Mayor of Sofia described in this Award breached the obligations of the Republic of Bulgaria under Article 3(1) of the BIT to ensure fair and equitable treatment of the investments of the Claimants in Bulgaria and not to impair by unreasonable measures the operation, management, use, enjoyment or disposal of those investments.” Translation: The Mayor of Sofia (note 10). row. Boyko Borissov) has violated the rights of investors – i.e. Bulgaria’s tort liability as a state is committed because of the actions of Buci, sorry, Comrade Borisov. By the way, his name appears repeatedly in the decision of the arbitral tribunal.

Here one would say: big leek, that was a long time ago. Nice, we have and A more recent example. The largest lawsuit ever filed against Bulgaria is by the heirs of the late Denis Ershov for the extremely profitable business of PETROL. Last year it was brought to ICSID €1 billion case against Bulgaria . About a month ago, the tribunal ruled with an interim ruling, which was not in favor of Bulgaria. Although it was reflected in our country to some extent, the coverage was inaccurate and incomplete. Our exploration of specialized American publications, however, corrects the omissions of colleagues. It turns out that the Bulgarian “Defensive strategy“It was to claim that Ershov’s children had no right to pursue such a lawsuit – only he himself had such a right, you see, so that the case should be immediately dismissed. How exactly could the man to file a lawsuit from the other world, it is not clear at all. That is, Kondov plus White & Case have invented one great, which of course was rejected unanimously by the World Bank arbitrators. However, this nonsense costs money, as many hours of fees are invoiced for it, as you can guess.

The Affairs of Ivan

So far, these are just some of the exploits Ivanovo, dear readers. It turns out that Ivan also enjoys Special treatment by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Here’s what our further research in court records showed. Christmas Day in 2018 Ivan was detained by a police patrol.. This happened around midnight on the 24th to the 25th, with Ivan driving Mercedes ML and was stopped for inspection. Ivan refused to present a driver’s license and documents to the car and began to behave aggressively towards the police, even He threatens to run over One of them standing in front of his car. The patrol calls for reinforcements, after which Ivan starts shouting that he has a firearm, that he is an employee of the Ministry of Finance, and the police will be fired. The patrolman removed him from the car and handcuffed him, with the alcohol test on the spot giving a negative result. A search of the car actually found a gun legally in his possession. Here, however, we would raise the question how many senior officials in the Ministry of Finance – and for what reason – walk around Sofia with pistols, even less on Christmas Eve. 

All this fact is described in detail in the case that Kondov filed against his detention. In the judgment

in case 4975/2019 of the Special Surveillance Devices, the Judge-Rapporteur held that Kondov himself had provoked the detention you have his aggressive and threatening behavior, and that nothing has prevented him from showing his driver’s license within a check – and such the Ministry of Interior does constantly, especially around the holidays. What do you have to show your book, your ticket and whatever else you need – we might add. Before the district court, as well as subsequently before the administrative court, Kondov brought arguments related to his high official position, reputation, etc. Okay, but what does this have to do with the detention order, the court wondered. At the end of 2020, a triple cassation panel of the ACSC
judgment
in Case 4722/2020, which finally dismissed Kondov’s appeal. In this sense, the city attorney’s office also pleaded. This means that he was detained lawfully and deservedly, even according to prosecutor Stancheva. However, it also means something else – he has no right to file a lawsuit under the SMLDA against the Ministry of Interior. Apropos, the triple chamber of cassation consists of quite reputable magistrates, so the probability that there are indeed some arbitrariness on the part of the police, which the judges have totally slept, is quite low.

Let’s try the Casquet

But as they say, if it does not happen through court – let’s act with the prosecution! By the way, this remark is attributed to the State Enterprise (Delyan Peevski) on the occasion of one of his many raiding schemes (and there it never passes without the participation of a prosecutor). So, what does our Ivan do when he sees how he loses the case against his detention? Well, he approached the Casquetura. That’s right, he filed a signal with the prosecutor’s office against one of the police officers who detained him Parvanov (interesting why only against him). The prosecution acted suspiciously quickly – and in 2021 prosecutor Petar Djunov wrote and filed an indictment with a legal qualification “medium bodily injury.” This is quite strange, especially against the backdrop of dozens of young people actually beaten during the protests of 2020.Three years later, no police officer has been taken to court. In other words, we do not know whether Kondov was really hit by the police, or these are just his allegations – with which he somehow motivated and activated a prosecutor from the SRS. But we know for sure that many people were actually beaten and severely beaten – and for 3 years none of the guilty has been taken to court. So the District Prosecutor’s Office in Sofia It works with a very tangible double standard.. When it comes to a senior government official like Kondov, he touches the case swiftly and brings the case to court. But when it comes to protesters against Geshev and Borisov, he does everything possible to prevent the cases from going to court. Report – prosecutors Julian Lefterov from Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office and Ivan Ivanov (we are not kidding) from the SRS. This one double standard is also a strong indication.that Ivan Kondov probably has serious connections in the circles of the state prosecution. What exactly the level of connections are at – we can only guess.

The criminal case against the policeman Parvanov has been going on for 2 years and it’s nowhere. There is even a recusal of one of the jurors – it turns out that he and Kondov are former colleagues. This recusal also leads to Restart the case from scratch. The next meeting is in a month, and we will follow up and see who is the best man, who is going and who is the bride’s brother. We will only add that Prosecutor Djunov had also written the indictment against Valio Toplotto for currency crimes, which was initially
returned
by the court as unfit.

Revelations of Assen Vassilev

As mentioned above, literally a few days ago the case around the arbitration cases got even hotter and hot. During the parliamentary scrutiny on Friday, September 1, the Finance Minister was provoked by the ill-informed delusions of the kopecks from “Vazrazhdane” to shed a little more light on the Judicial Protection Directorate. We will quote some of his statements in full, because it is worthwhile: “It has been established that this Directorate works without internal rules, that one person decides what the criteria for the competitions for law firms should be, this person conducts them and evaluates the law firms, He makes the assignments himself and absolutely decides for himself whether and what the payments should be with a power of attorney from 2015 from the then Minister of Finance, which has not been renewed by other ministers.” It has already become clear that the man is Kondov, and the Minister – Goranov. Onward: “quite serious violations, on the one hand, of information security and on the other hand, of the way assignments were made to specific law firms.” The minister’s speech is robbed, because somehow how to be different. We have no doubt that new revelations on the subject are forthcoming – although not necessarily from the parliamentary rostrum.

***

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