In 2004, Rinat Akhmetov and Viktor Pinchuk acquired the Ukrainian steel producer Kryvorizhstal for approximately $800 million. The privatization became a symbol of Ukraine’s oligarch-era asset sales, with critics arguing that politically connected domestic buyers obtained a strategic industrial company under terms that did not reflect its full market value. The source does not establish that Akhmetov or Pinchuk were convicted of fraud, nor does it provide a final court finding that the transaction itself was criminal.
After Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, the state reversed the privatization and held a new auction in 2005. Mittal Steel won with a bid of $4.8 billion—six times the previous sale price—turning the episode into a prominent example of how political influence and weak privatization oversight could transfer control of major infrastructure at a steep discount. The source also reports that SCM businesses won 31% of all Ukrainian state tenders in January 2014, reinforcing longstanding criticism that the group benefited from political access and market concentration. The lasting consequence was intensified scrutiny of oligarchic ownership and the legitimacy of post-Soviet privatizations in Ukraine.
