On May 15, ARMA announced the next competition on Prozorro for a manager of IDS Ukraine assets — the producer of "Morshynska" and "Myrgородska", whose corporate rights have been under arrest since 2022 due to links with sanctioned oligarch Mykhailo Fridman. But this is neither the first nor even the second attempt to find a manager. This is the third.
How two years went nowhere
In March 2023, ARMA held the first competition. The winner was LLC "Carpathian Mineral Waters" — a producer of "Carpathian Spring," owned by entrepreneur Serhiy Ustenko. However, according to Forbes Ukraine, actual asset management never began: the company faced a requirement to coordinate decisions with the owners of corporate rights, effectively with sanctioned Russians. The legislation did not allow this, the manager refused to work under such conditions, and in April 2025, ARMA terminated the contract.
"Parliament needs to solve this problem — remove the requirement to coordinate with sanctioned persons"
Olena Duma, former head of ARMA
The second competition, announced on November 28, 2025, failed at the start. According to Ukrainian News, three complaints were filed in ProZorro by market participants — over discriminatory requirements and legal conflicts in tender documentation. On December 25, the VACS court satisfied the lawsuit of potential participants and ordered the NABU to begin a preliminary investigation. ARMA cancelled the competition.
What changed in the third round
The current competition is conducted under law №4503-IX, which came into force after the second failure. According to ARMA acting head Yaroslava Maksimenko, the new rules provide stricter requirements for candidates and additional control mechanisms. The agency also inspected both plants — Morshynsk and Myrgород — as preparation for the competition, and for the first time publicly announced a forecast: the state is counting on billion-hryvnia revenues from asset management.
However, the Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit in the VACS court in September 2025 to recover IDS Ukraine assets to the state — that is, for complete nationalization. The company's management, by the way, called for exactly this scenario back in 2024, considering it the least destructive. Meanwhile, IDS Ukraine controls over 40% of the bottled mineral and drinking water market in Ukraine, while "Morshynska" separately controls about 27%.
Where the real knot is
The problem is not merely procedural. Even if the new manager passes the competition — he will face the same legal wall: how to manage corporate rights without coordinating decisions with shareholders who are under sanctions. As Ekonomichna Pravda explains, this is exactly what prevented the previous manager from working in practice. Changing the selection procedure does not automatically remove this restriction.
IDS commented on the situation restrainedly, noting the complexity of the process, but did not assess the new rules on the merits. The Ministry of Justice's lawsuit on nationalization in VACS has yet to be reviewed.
If VACS grants the nationalization claim — the entire ARMA competition will turn out to be a pointless step. If not — the third manager will already face in May the same legal conflict that destroyed the first one.
