{"id":51479,"date":"2020-01-15T20:20:26","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T17:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/?p=51479"},"modified":"2020-01-20T20:28:15","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T17:28:15","slug":"ec-sends-emissaries-to-bulgaria-over-abuses-by-private-enforcement-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/ec-sends-emissaries-to-bulgaria-over-abuses-by-private-enforcement-agents.html","title":{"rendered":"EC Sends Emissaries to Bulgaria over Abuses by Private Enforcement Agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bulgarian private enforcement agents (PEAs) are engaged in illegal commercial activity because companies associated with them are buying debtors\u2019 properties. The complaints of the victims of the Bulgarian Chamber of PEAs have reached Brussels already. The victims\u2019 Association \u201cSolidarnost\u201d (Solidarity) has filed 15 petitions with the European Parliament’s (EP) Committee on Petitions. The European Union (EU) Ombudsman’s team is investigating them. In February 2020, a special fact-finding mission of MEPs will arrive in Sofia to check the abuses of PEAs in Bulgaria, Bivol learned. They will hold meetings with Justice and Economy Ministers Danail Kirilov and Emil Karanikolov and representatives of the central bank (the Bulgarian National Bank, BNB.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bivol obtained the exclusive information about the upcoming visit from \u201cSolidarnost\u201d and from the MEP of the Bulgarian coalition Democratic Bulgaria (European People\u2019s Party, EPP) Radan Kanev<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

According to him, only two other Bulgarian MEPs of the VMRO party, Andrey Slabakov and Angel Dzhambazki, have confirmed the need for such a mission to check the situation with the PEAs in Bulgaria.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Kanev is not very optimistic about the outcome of the mission.<\/p>\n

“My position is that without legislative changes there can be no real result. In principle, the Committee on Petitions has no direct authority. The maximum it can do is a fact finding mission and a report to the European Commission.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The office of MEP Andrey Slabakov also confirmed for Bivol the information about the mission. According to it, the mission in Sofia should consist of at least ten people from different Member States.<\/p>\n

Bivol obtained the agenda of the two-day visit (February 25-26) as well. In addition to Justice Minister Danail Kirilov<\/strong> and Economy Minister Emil Karanikolov<\/strong>, the MEPs will hold a meeting with the head of the BNB\u2019s Banking Supervision Directorate, and with the Mayor of the northwestern city of Montana and employees of the Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Waters due to environmental concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolidarnost\u201d received a replay to its complaint by the European Union Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly<\/strong> on December 18, 2019. It is also available to Bivol.<\/p>\n

It states that the Ombudsman will analyze the information provided and decide what resolution to impose on the complaint and whether to inform the European Commission about the violations described by the Bulgarian NGO.<\/p>\n

Bulgarian NGO “landing” in Brussels<\/strong><\/p>\n

As announced on September 5, 2019, on the site of Evrocom TV, a group of Bulgarian lawyers and human rights activists, led by the \u201cSolidarnost\u201d NGO had attended a hearing at the EP\u2019s Committee on Petitions.<\/p>\n

At the hearing in Brussels, the human rights activist Nikolai \u201cThe Barefooted\u201d Kolev<\/strong> and attorney Vladislav Yanev<\/strong> have announced that the Bulgarian people are been robbed “legally” through banks and PEAs. Yanev has given as an example a judge from the Black Sea city of Varna, who is a borrower from a bank while presiding a case of injured consumers against the same bank.<\/p>\n

Attorney Svetla Milanova<\/strong> has called for rigorous monitoring because the Bulgarian institutions seemingly “are taking steps to change the legislation, but these changes are not happening to the end.”<\/p>\n

Then, the Committee has acknowledged that, indeed, the procedures in the guidelines for the enforcement of court rules “are not harmonized with those of the EU” but it could intervene “only when European legislation has a regulation on specific aspects”.<\/p>\n

The Committee recalls that in January 2019, the EC initiated proceedings against Bulgaria, including because of the Code of Civil Procedure (CCP). The amendments would increase consumer rights.<\/p>\n

“The Committee has no right to intervene in individual cases in the Bulgarian courts; we will monitor and discuss the next steps”.<\/em><\/p>\n

However, there is still an obvious result from the meeting, at least because the Committee has agreed to send a mission to Sofia to verify the complaints.<\/p>\n

In December 2019, Ivaylo Iliev, Chair of \u201cSolidarnost\u201d wrote to the new Chair of the EP\u2019s Committee on Petitions, Dolors Montserrat<\/strong>, asking information about the date, stay, the composition of the mission and the subject of the review, due to the exceptional interest of the Association\u2019s members. <\/p>\n

Tsetska Tsacheva: We do not accept the claimants’ allegations<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reason for submitting 15 new petitions is the presence of three petitions by Ivaylo Iliev in 2017.
\nThe reply to the EP Committee on Petitions by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Bulgaria, under the leadership of the then Minister Tsetska Tsacheva<\/strong>, has taken over a year.<\/p>\n

The EP received the 17-page formal response only on December 19, 2018. In it, Tsacheva’s subordinates generally explain that the PEA and the CCP of the Republic of Bulgaria are not only for the benefit of the citizens but also “well-aligned” with the EU legislation.<\/p>\n

The petitions are disputed on the grounds that what they describe was hardly possible under the current legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, no freezing of all assets can be discussed, as the enforcement measures imposed by the enforcement agent and the enforcement measures taken must be proportionate to the obligation.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The NGO sees the written position of Tsetska Tsacheva’s team as “perfunctory” and “useless”.<\/p>\n

Conflict of interest among PEAs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The many complaints by citizens to \u201cSolidarnost\u201d show that the PEAs are establishing related companies to buy seized real estate and other properties of the debtors.<\/p>\n

However, the Private Enforcement Agents Act prohibits such practices. It postulates that a PEA cannot hold political positions, positions in local governments, government bodies, practice law, be hired on a permanent labor contract, work as a notary public, be a trustee in bankruptcy, carry on a commercial activity, be a manager or participate in the supervisory or management bodies of commercial companies or cooperatives.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the \u201cSolidarnost\u201d report to Bivol states that some of the PEAs, including at least two members of the Chamber of PEAs\u2019 Board of Directors, are sole proprietors of the companies’ capital, while their relatives have been appointed managers to cover up the PEAs\u2019 illegal activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolidarnost\u201d are outraged because they have repeatedly sent reports to the institutions, but no action to prevent the problem has followed so far.<\/p>\n

In most cases, the replies from the institutions explain that the competent authority for supervising and controlling the PEAs is the Chamber of PEAs itself.<\/p>\n

<\/em>“You, yourself, understand the situation in which there is a lack of proper oversight and the PEAs are to be supervised by the Chamber of PEAS,”<\/em> said \u201cSolidarnost\u201d Chair Ivaylo Iliev.<\/p>\n

There is a whole list of PEAs in the complaints, including three of the most influential in Bulgaria. Two of them are members of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of PEAs. Another is the son of a former Chair of the Bar Association in the southern city of Haskovo.<\/p>\n

Maria Krasinova Tsacheva<\/strong> is on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of PEAs of the Republic of Bulgaria and her husband Vladimir Lyudmilov Tsachev<\/strong> is a PEA. Together, they are partners in three companies.<\/p>\n

According to the complaints, “some illegal actions are being carried out” in the city of Haskovo by PEA Zahari Zapryanov<\/strong>. He is a business partner with his sister Vera Georgieva Georgieva and his mother Veska Georgieva Zapryanova, who is a former Chair of the Bar Association – Haskovo and in another company with Delcho Nikolaev Pehlivanov, who is “the main participant in the auctions announced by the PEA for the purchase of real estate”.<\/p>\n

Delcho Pehlivanov<\/strong> in turn conducts business through eight companies. However, the most interesting is “SANIKA 2003” Ltd.. The NGO says that it is a real estate agency that manages the properties purchased at public auctions.<\/p>\n

Delcho Pehlivanov<\/strong> is one of the protagonists of Bivol\u2019s investigation \u201cLAWMAKERS\u2019 \u2018SHACKS\u2019 IN SOFIA\u201d<\/a>. He is a business partner with the mayor of Mineralni Bani (Mineral Baths, SPA) \u2013 Haskovo, Myumyun Iskander <\/strong>from the party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), largely representing the Bulgarian Muslim minority. His assets include a large number of lucrative land swaps in Haskovo and the nearby town of Harmanli, carried out in 2009 at the end of the term of the Triple Coalition government in which the DPS participated. According to media reports, a while ago, two men have attacked and beaten him in broad daylight in Haskovo.<\/p>\n

Stoyan Yakimov \u2013 a millionaire PEA?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stoyan Blagoev Yakimov<\/strong> is Deputy Chairman <\/a>of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of PEAs. He became well known in Bulgaria because of the case with the collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank (CCB) and other cases.<\/p>\n

He has been the protagonist of numerous investigations, including Bivol\u2019s \u201cCOMPANIES CONNECTED TO CONTROVERSIAL LAWYER ACQUIRE PROPERTIES USED AS COLLATERAL IN COLLAPSED BANK\u201d<\/a> from 2016. It established that with the help of PEA Stoyan Yakimov, companies connected to Momchil Mondeshki<\/strong>, a lawyer close to controversial media mogul and DPS lawmaker Delyan Peevski<\/strong>, have managed to acquire properties of CCB for a reduced price. <\/p>\n

According to a report by \u201cSolidarnost\u201d, PEA Stoyan Yakimov<\/strong> further violates the law by being a partner in at least seven companies with his wife, who is most often referred to as a manager. A search in the Commercial Register indicates that Stoyan Yakimov is indeed engaged in commercial activities with investments in agriculture, renewable energy, real estate and more.<\/p>\n

His wife Vasilka Nikolaeva Yakimova is a manager in four companies in which she is an owner or a partner.
\nBOYANA ESTATES 2013 has acquired real estate for public sale by a PEA in an office building in Sofia for BGN 223,000. Interestingly, the rent of one square meter of office space in this building on \u201cGotse Delchev Blvd\u201d, according to research by Bivol in real estate agencies in Sofia is EUR 100.<\/p>\n

On August 7, 2014, financial expert Vassil Kendov<\/strong> wrote in detail about his dispute with PEA Stoyan Yakimov on his Kendov.com blog.<\/p>\n

>\u201cThe bank told me that my company account had been blocked by PEA Stoyan Yakimov, which was definitely a surprise to me. I had not received a warning message because it was unnecessary. The amount was paid back in 2012 by bank transfer,\u201d<\/em> writes Vassil Kendov.<\/p>\n

The financier then tells how he continues to receive letters from the National Revenue Agency (NRA) that he has not paid the Value Added Tax (VAT).<\/p>\n

It has turned out that the PEA simply has not transferred the money to the NRA, which is why Kendov\u2019s company account has been blocked.<\/p>\n

The Chamber of PEAS is not an organization that is easy to contact and reach \u2013 an answering machine answers calls to the two listed landline phone numbers without connecting to a real person. The site does not list the emails or numbers (even landline) of the members of the Board of Directors, and citizens cannot contact the Head of Public Relations and Protocol.<\/p>\n

However, after reaching her on her cellphone, she declined to comment on the case. “I have never heard of any complaints or petitions,”<\/strong> Antoaneta Nikova-Velinova<\/strong>, a spokesperson for the Chamber of PEAs, told Bivol. Nevertheless, she called the next day to give the position of the management, and it turns out that it is aware of the complaints.<\/p>\n

<\/em>\u201cTwo inspections (in 2018 and 2019) were carried out by the Committee for Combatting Corruption and the withdrawal of illegally acquired property (KPKONPI) (sic). There were no violations of the law. Maria Tsacheva was probed in 2019. No violations found.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Last but not least, it should be noted that the official website of the Chamber of PEAs in Bulgaria contains very little information, in addition to the sketchy availability of contact data, despite being created with European taxpayers\u2019 money,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bulgarian private enforcement agents (PEAs) are engaged in illegal commercial activity because companies associated with them are buying debtors\u2019 properties. 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As revealed by The New York Times, last year she traveled to Rome for an event at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Investigations"","block_context":{"text":"Investigations","link":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/category\/investigations-en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/louvrier-gabbard.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/louvrier-gabbard.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/louvrier-gabbard.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/louvrier-gabbard.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/louvrier-gabbard.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":36680,"url":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/ep-petitions-committee-passes-mariya-gabriels-storage-to-college-dominated-by-gerb.html","url_meta":{"origin":51479,"position":4},"title":"EP Petitions Committee \u201cPasses\u201d Mariya Gabriel’s “Storage” to College Dominated by GERB","author":"\u0415\u043a\u0438\u043f \u043d\u0430 \u0411\u0438\u0432\u043e\u043b\u044a","date":"20 December 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The petition, with which more than 1,500 people asked the European Parliament (EP) to investigate the case with the cheap municipal home of current Bulgarian European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society portfolio, Mariya Gabriel, has been examined by the EP Committee on Petitions. The has declared itself incompetent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comments"","block_context":{"text":"Comments","link":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/category\/comments-en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Mariya-Gabriel-EPPGroup.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Mariya-Gabriel-EPPGroup.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Mariya-Gabriel-EPPGroup.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Mariya-Gabriel-EPPGroup.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":18867,"url":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/podpiski-lichni-danni-english.html","url_meta":{"origin":51479,"position":5},"title":"The Predetermined Outcome of the Scandal with Falsified Personal Data in Political Parties\u2019 Electoral Petitions","author":"\u0415\u043a\u0438\u043f \u043d\u0430 \u0411\u0438\u0432\u043e\u043b\u044a","date":false,"format":false,"excerpt":"The scandal with personal data of party supporters in electoral petitions brought to light abuses that are not a new phenomenon. Three years ago, the Prosecution launched pre-trial proceedings in a particularly large-scale identity theft and forgery of signatures committed by the associated with TIM (the Varna-based alleged organized crime\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Capture_decran_2012-10-05_a_11.12.10","src":"images\/stories\/Capture_decran_2012-10-05_a_11.12.10.jpg","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"images\/stories\/Capture_decran_2012-10-05_a_11.12.10.jpg 1x, images\/stories\/Capture_decran_2012-10-05_a_11.12.10.jpg 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/DolorsMonserrat_MultimediaCentre.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bivol.bg\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}