Victor Pinchuk

Victor Mykhailovych Pinchuk (Віктор Михайлович Пінчук, Viktor Mykhailovych Pinchuk; born 14 December 1960) is a Ukrainian businessman and oligarch.

Pinchuk was born in 1960 in Kyiv to Jewish parents who moved to the industrial city of Dnipropetrovsk.

in 1987, he graduated from Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute with a doctorate in industrial engineering.

In 1990, he founded the Interpipe Company on the basis of his patented innovations, which were adopted by leading metallurgical factories in the USSR.

Interpipe is a major producer of seamless pipes and railway wheels.

He has been a member of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, for two consecutive terms from 1998 to 2006.

He is married to Olena Pinchuk, the daughter of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Pinchuk was a member of the Ukrainian Parliament between 1998 and 2006 for Labour Ukraine.

He left politics after he came to the conclusion that Ukraine had reached a level of development when business and politics should be separated.

Pinchuk is a member of the Board of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, of the International Advisory Council of Brookings Institution and of the Corporate Advisory Board of the Global Business Coalition against HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.

Pinchuk holds a share of VS Energy International Ukraine together with Mikhail Spektor and Igor Kolomoisky.

According to the investigation, the amount of the bribe to Viktor Pinchuk from 2003 to 2006 was allegedly $110 million.

In 2004, Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov, two of Ukraine's richest men, acquired the Kryvorizhstal steel factory for about $800 million.

Then-President Leonid Kuchma, who is Pinchuk's father-in-law, authorized the state asset sale, which competitors complained was far below market rate.

Later, the first Tymoshenko government reversed this sale, and held a nationally televised repeat auction that netted $4.8 billion.

In 2004, Pinchuk created Yalta European Strategy, an international independent organization to promote Ukraine joining the European Union.

Its annual summer meeting in Yalta was a Ukraine-EU forum for debate and policy recommendations development.

In 2006, Pinchuk founded an investment advisory company, EastOne.

Its portfolio includes industrial assets such as production of pipes and tubes, rail car wheels, specialty steels and alloys, machinery, as well as media.

In 2013, American steel makers filed a case with the United States Department of Commerce alleging that Interpipe Group was illegally dumping steel tubes into the American natural gas market.

In November 2013, Fitch Ratings downgraded Interpipe because of the dumping accusations and a missed $106 million debt payment.

In September 2013, Pinchuk and Tony Blair introduced Hillary Clinton's keynote address to the conference at Livadia Palace, with Bill Clinton in attendance.

Stefan Fule, Paul Krugman, Alexei Kudrin, Shimon Peres, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Larry Summers and other political and business leaders have attended.

Since the Crimean Crisis of 2014 these meetings have been taking place in Kyiv.

On 4 March 2015, at the hearing on Special Control Commission of Privatization in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, oligarch Igor Kolomoisky accused Viktor Pinchuk of receiving a bribe of $5 million a month for the rights to manage Ukrnafta, 50 + 1% of which is owned by the state-owned company Naftogaz of Ukraine.

According to Kolomoisky, the money was transferred to offshore companies, the "ultimate owners of which were identified" as Victor Pinchuk and Leonid Kuchma.

"We paid this money, and besides that, we paid dividends to the state, all taxes and everything else. But for the right to receive our dividends, we were forced to pay another 5 million from our dividends to Pinchuk", - said Kolomoisky.

On 18 March 2015, National Anti-Corruption Bureau opened criminal proceedings.

In December 2015, Pinchuk brought a $2 billion civil action against fellow oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Gennadiy Bogolyubov in the High Court of Justice in London over the 2004 purchase of a Ukrainian mining company.

Allegations made include murder and bribery.

In September 2015, Pinchuk donated $150,000 to the Donald J. Trump Foundation in exchange for a 20-minute video appearance by Donald Trump shown at the conference that year in Kyiv.

Michael Cohen solicited Douglas Schoen for the donation from Pinchuk, which was the largest outside donation the Trump Foundation received that year.

In 2015, Pinchuk promoted closer ties between Ukraine and the EU.

He was an active participant in the World Economic Forum at Davos.

As of January 2016, Forbes magazine ranked him as 1,250th on the list of wealthiest people in the world, with a fortune of US$1.44 billion.

Pinchuk is the founder of EastOne Group LLC, an international investing, project funding and financial advisory company based in London, and of Interpipe Group, one of Ukraine's leading pipe, wheel and steel producers.

Pinchuk is the owner of four TV channels and a popular tabloid, Fakty i Kommentarii.

In January 2016, an undisclosed out of court settlement was reached just before the trial was due to start.

In December 2016, Viktor Pinchuk published an article in the Wall Street Journal "Ukraine Must Make Painful Compromises for Peace With Russia", in which he suggested that Ukraine temporarily abandon the prospect of EU membership, exclude NATO membership and make a compromise with Russia on the Crimea peninsula on purpose the achieving peace in Eastern Ukraine.

The article drew criticism from Ukrainian political authorities of Ukraine.