Sayenko Kharenko has acted as Ukrainian legal counsel to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on providing a EUR 10 million loan to the city of Lviv to ensure the provision of vital municipal services and mitigate the effects of the ongoing war.
The loan is extended by EBRD under a 25 per cent first loss risk cover provided by the European Union under its Municipal, Infrastructure and Industrial Resilience Programme (which was established as part of its Ukraine Investment Framework) to address war-related risks.
The EBRD’s loan will provide liquidity to key municipal operators such as transport company Lvivelectrotrans, waste management operator Zelene Misto and water operator Lvivvodokanal. The emergency funds will support those municipal operators by helping to address their critical liquidity needs, helping to ensure the uninterrupted provision of essential public services.
Lviv is the seventh largest city in Ukraine and the largest in the west of the country. The number of people living in Lviv and in the wider Lviv agglomeration has increased recently, since Lviv is a natural destination for internally displaced people due to its location and its role as a major educational and economic centre.
EBRD is Ukraine’s largest institutional lender. It has significantly increased its lending to the country in recent years, making more than EUR 7 billion available since February 2022. It has also secured agreement from its shareholders for a capital increase of EUR 4 billion in order to continue lending at this level in wartime and increase its financing further when the time comes for reconstruction.
Sayenko Kharenko’s team included Igor Lozenko, Oles Trachuk, Polina Savinska and Mykola Suprunovych.
