Corporate raiding in Ukraine is a widelydiscussed and reported problem that severely damages investment, economicdevelopment, and the welfare of ordinary people. Yet the phenomenon of raidingitself is poorly understood, often either dismissed as inseparable from thecountry’s broader problem of endemic corruption, or imputed to powerful andshadowy raiders thought to be immune from defensive measures by privatebusinesses. The field research in Ukraine, which Matthew Rojansky conducted inMay-June 2013, provides ample evidence that, while the causes and methodologiesof raiding are complex, the problem is not unsolvable. Both preventive andreactive defenses are available to private business owners threatened bycorporate raiders, while some reforms are already underway that are likely toconstrain raiding, in addition to other promising avenues for future reform. 

Download the Property Rights and the Legacy ofCorporate Raiding in Ukraine: Field Research Findings (PDF)

More about the research on corporate raiding:  http://www.irex.org/resource/corporate-raiding-ukraine-research-brief

Guestswho attended this presentation represented various fields ofexpertise and experience – within the fold of the World Bank group(International Finance Corporation, World Bank, IMF), the U.S.-Ukraine BusinessCouncil, privat and public sectors, etc.

Participants in Ukraine represented (via video conference) the National Securitiesand Stock Market Commission of Ukraine, Financial Markets International (fundedby USAID), Commercial Law Center, USAID, Anti-Corruption Action Center. 

Matthew Rojansky is the director of the Kennan Institute, a non-partisaninstitution at the Wilson Center committed to improving American expertise andknowledge about Russia and other successor states to the Soviet Union. Awell-regarded expert on US relations with the states of the former SovietUnion, especially Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, Rojansky has advisedgovernments, intergovernmental organizations, and major private actors onconflict resolution and efforts to enhance shared security throughout theEuro-Atlantic and Eurasian region. 

From 2010 to 2013, Rojansky was the deputy director of the Russiaand Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. There,he founded Carnegie's Ukraine Program, led a multi-year project to supportU.S.-Russia health cooperation, and created a track-two task force to promoteresolution of the Moldova-Transnistria conflict. From 2007 to 2010, Rojanskyserved as executive director of the Partnership for a Secure America (PSA),where he focused on high-level bipartisan initiatives aimed at repairing theU.S.-Russian relationship, strengthening the U.S. commitment to nuclear armscontrol and nonproliferation, and leveraging global science engagement fordiplomacy.

Matthew Rojansky is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS andAmerican University, and a participant in the Dartmouth Dialogues, a track-twoU.S.-Russian conflict resolution initiative begun in 1960. He is frequentlyinterviewed on TV and radio, and his writing has appeared in the InternationalHerald Tribune, the Washington Post, and Foreign Policy.

Matthew is a Senior Advisor to the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council(USUBC).