17^th of February 2017 – the South-Kazakhstan region
Kazakhstan has set a precedent: for the first time a criminal case on pseudoentrepreneurship was decided in favor of business

This is made possible thanks to the intervention of a business ombudsman.
To understand the scale of damage to the business with a different outcome of the case, it should be noted: it is not about one or more companies. The fate of 101 companies was saved, selling and purchasing fuel and lubricants, among which 32 - in southern Kazakhstan, including "SKAT" and "Shymkentmunay Onimdery".

Last year almost half a hundred businessmen of SKR sounded the alarm, calling for urgent assistance. The situation was very serious and required immediate intervention of the authorities at all levels.
All these entrepreneurs in 2012-2013 purchased petroleum products at a discounted price from Almaty LLP “Alma Oil an ENERGY". Fuel was purchased for distribution in the South Kazakhstan region, and the operator has been identified through the Ministry of Oil and Gas.

At first everything was fine: the company worked, deliveries were carried out. Each batch of supplied petroleum products was made in accordance with the rules and requirements of the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, which is supported by acts of acceptance of the executed works, invoices, bills of lading, and so on. But in December 2015 the court delivered its verdict on the recognition of LLP “Alma Oil an ENERGY" and two other companies founded by Almaty citizen Evgeny Minakov – pseudo-enterprises, of the Director - guilty of a crime – of pseudo-entrepreneurship. He was released from criminal liability, he paid a fine of 9, 9 million tenge.

Immediately followed a chain reaction - on the basis of an enforceable court decision on all counterparties with which worked “Alma Oil an ENERGY" and two more Minakov’s firms, State Revenue Committee has imposed big tax charge. They were supposed to pay to the state treasury all taxes (VAT and corporate income tax on transactions) over the years - a total of more than 2 billion tenge. In other words, entrepreneurs need to pay them for the second round. Otherwise, they were expecting the arrest of accounts and penalties.

Amounts were too big for entrepreneurs. The arrest of accounts with the simultaneous termination of the activities of all entities providing petroleum products to the region, threatened to cause traffic jams and increased social tension in the region.

The problem was promptly considered by the Council on the protection of the rights of entrepreneurs of SKR. The meeting was very hot. Members could not understand why, when conducting such a serious inspection of LLP, no operator of SKO has not been invited to Almaty. After all, to protect their rights, proving the validity of transactions, entrepreneurs could only during the preliminary investigation and the consideration of the criminal case in court. But only 8 of the 350 enterprises were admitted to the court in Kazakhstan, who had transactions with the firms of E. Minakov. There were no South Kazakhstani companies among them. The investigation did not even bother to examine the factual circumstances of the relationship of contractors with pseudo-entrepreneurs. No one investigated the documents confirming the legality of performed operations. They did not take into account that the company sold fuels and lubricants, the farms received it, as evidenced by invoices provided. Moreover, all this is monitored by the tax committee and petroleum products were shipped or delivered to SKR by rail. In total more than 50 thousand tons of petroleum products have been received in the amount of 5 billion 134 million tenge. It would be simply impossible to smuggle such volumes in cars illegally or with forged documents. Among contractors there was also the largest airline “Skat”. The question arises, how then flew the planes of this company  flew if the transactions were imaginary?

The Chamber of Entrepreneurs of South Kazakhstan region appealed to the central office of NCE "Atameken" with a request to address to the Prosecutor General's Office. The Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan Bolat Palymbetov sent a letter to the Attorney General. Attorney General lodged a protest against the sentence of Almaly district court. In protest, the Attorney General pointed to a fundamental breach of criminal procedural law by the court, which led to unreasonable excuse of E. Minakov. In addition, it was noted that the rights and interests of third parties were violated, namely the honest entrepreneurs. In short, it was provided grounds for setting aside the judgment.

Judicial board on criminal cases of the Supreme Court satisfied the protest and, pointing to the inadequacy of investigative measures and the lack of a comprehensive investigation of the circumstances and facts of the case, the verdict was overturned. The criminal case was sent to the court for a new trial.

"Thanks to the intervention of the Ombudsman, business owners were able to provide evidence to the court on validity of transactions, - the deputy director of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs of SKR Gazizbek Natbaev. - Contractors have been heard by the court and questioned for the transaction and thus proved a real supply of petroleum products. As a result, the court found that E. Minakov with certain counterparties had real transactions, and recently made a court ruling: a criminal case against E. Minakov regarding transactions with 101 enterprises, including 32 South Kazakhstani companies, should be stoped for lack of evidence ".