Checking the activities of a competitor in the agricultural sector

Molfar was approached by a representative of the owner of a large agricultural holding, which operates in most central, southern and some eastern regions of Ukraine. The main request to analysts was to gather as much information as possible about our customer's direct competitor in the agricultural sector. In addition, we were informed that this competitor, acting through its companies, was repeatedly observed in violation of state laws of Ukraine, bribery and abuse of fair trade rules.

Next, we are briefly showing the results of our work, without mentioning names. We have also removed all the private information that is a confidential secret of the customer and Molfar.

The original report on the results of the work was presented by the 85 000 characters of competitive intelligence.

Contents of the person’s review

A brief biography of the object of study, which immediately proceeds to the analysis of current activities. The object of research directly owns nine companies – it has a share of 50% to 100% in each of the companies we found.

Legal entities were also identified through affiliated nominee owners and directors, presumably under the control of the facility. In such legal entities, the object and its family members have never been formally owned (directly or indirectly) or managed by eight companies.

We also investigated two extensive criminal schemes of the object, and learned the issue of self-seizure of land plots that were in state or private ownership.

Block with research on relations with the russian federation. This is a very important block for everyone who wants to manage business in Ukrainian realities. Ties with russia have been considered taboo for honest business since 2014, and in 2022 with the start of a full-scale russian war against Ukraine – any ties with russia signal the impossibility of the entrepreneur to continue to operate in the Ukrainian market.

Tax violations of the object:

in 2020-2021, the director of the object’s company was involved in lawsuits related to the implementation of fictitious transactions for the purchase of real estate and equipment, inclusion in the list of risky taxpayers and refusal to register a tax invoice;
in 2018, the audited law firm was involved in a criminal case for providing false data in Q2-Q4’2017 in tax reports;
In 2020, LLC [...] appeared in a criminal case as one of the companies in whose favor LLC [...] carried out resort operations, illegally formed a tax credit for the total amount of [...];
in [...] the director of LLC [...] was brought to administrative responsibility for violation of the order of tax accounting;
in [...] the company [...] was accrued tax debt to the local budget in the amount of [...]. According to the official web portal of the State Tax Service, the State Tax Service has the right to a tax lien on the [...] property.

Later in the report, Molfar analysts revealed the following issues in detail:

The disputed procedure for acquiring the company
Violations of traffic rules, enforcement proceedings
Property of the object and related companies
Object’s family

In addition, the report includes a large category called "Employee Relations, Colleagues and Partners, Potential Suppliers, Personal Relationships, and More." A total of 63 people, which were examined briefly or in more detail, depending on their importance in the activities of the object.

All possible contacts of the object were collected, lifestyle, flights, property, cars were researched, all private information was found, which could be used to gain benefits during communication, etc.

If you need a person’s review, competitive intelligence, find connections with companies and holdings, the Molfar team can help you. We have extensive experience in finding business information and legal data, background checking and researching socio-political issues.