Paid a Ukrainian Contractor and Suspect Fraud: How to Preserve Evidence and Recover Your Money

You entered into a contract with a Ukrainian supplier, manufacturer, or contractor for goods, equipment, software development, other work, or services. Before paying, you reviewed its website, company registration details, portfolio, or product samples. Your company paid an advance or the full price, but did not receive the goods, completed work, or services by the agreed deadline. The supplier or contractor points to shortages of raw materials, logistical difficulties, staffing problems, or technical issues and asks for more time.

After the first missed deadline, ask for evidence showing what has actually been done and where the goods are: warehouse records and shipping documents, proof of the current stage of production, completed work, source files, or a substantive progress report. If you receive further assurances but nothing you can verify, it is reasonable to ask whether the supplier or contractor ever had the goods, production capacity, or personnel it described before payment. Even then, non-performance alone does not prove fraud: a legitimate transaction can fail after payment.

Agreeing to another extension carries risks beyond delay. Messages, advertisements, and website pages may be deleted, while assets may be transferred or become unavailable for enforcement. The transaction and the debtor's current asset position should therefore be assessed before another promised delivery, completion date, or refund is postponed again.

You do not need to investigate possible deception yourself. Preserve the documents and decide whether your company still wants the contract performed or the money returned. Ukrainian counsel can determine who assumed the obligation, who received the payment, and against whom a claim may be brought; assess the legal basis and recovery prospects; and explain whether the evidence also warrants a criminal complaint.

A breach of contract and fraud may initially look the same: the deadline has passed, nothing has been delivered, and the advance has not been repaid. The difference lies in what was represented before payment and whether the business intended to perform when it accepted the money. Those facts determine whether you should pursue a contractual remedy, file a criminal complaint, or use both procedures.

If the business actually had the goods, production capacity, or personnel and began carrying out the contract, a later failure is more likely to be a breach of contract. It may have resulted from higher costs, the loss of a supplier, logistical restrictions, or cash-flow problems. Depending on the contract and the circumstances, you may seek delivery, completion of the work, repayment of the advance, or compensation for proven losses.

Evidence of fraud must relate to what was said or done before or when you paid. The business may have claimed that goods were in stock when they did not exist, presented another company's production facilities or portfolio as its own, produced forged permits, or directed payment to an entity with no role in performing the contract. The question is whether false information induced you to enter into the contract or make the payment.

What happened after payment may support or undermine the explanation given before you paid. If an investigation establishes that the money was immediately transferred to related parties, that may strengthen the suspicion. None of these—a single transfer, a closed office, or a prolonged delay—proves fraud on its own.

Ordinary commercial due diligence does not always reveal deception. A website, company registration details, and references may appear genuine even if the goods do not exist, the advertised team is not involved, or the business has no access to the production facilities it presented. If a dispute arises, Ukrainian counsel can compare the pre-payment representations with the available evidence and identify any material inconsistencies.

After the first missed deadline, establish what, if anything, has actually been done. Ask where the goods you paid for are located, request documents that identify them, ask to see the current stage of production, or require the interim materials specified in the contract. Without that evidence, a revised deadline is only another assurance.

An extension may make commercial sense if you still need the goods or work, the other party has shown that completion remains feasible, and a final deadline is recorded in writing. If the goods or work product have lost their commercial value, continuing to demand performance may conflict with a later position that the contract should be terminated and the money repaid. Counsel can help you choose and document a consistent remedy.

Before making accusations, preserve material that may be deleted: website pages, catalogues, portfolio items, advertisements, profiles, correspondence, and information about the people involved in the negotiations. Publicly available information about the relevant businesses and their assets should also be reviewed. These steps preserve the evidence; they do not establish fraud.

Suspected fraud does not deprive your company of its contractual rights. If the other party accepted payment and failed to perform, you may be entitled to seek delivery, completion of the work, termination of the contract, repayment, or compensation for proven losses, depending on the terms and circumstances. The appropriate remedy also depends on the extent of any partial performance and whether the agreed result still has commercial value for your business.

If the goods exist, part of the order has been manufactured, work has been partially completed, or services are being provided, a contractual claim will usually be the more direct route. If completion still has commercial value, a lawyer can demand delivery of identified goods or completion of a defined scope by a final deadline. If not, the lawyer can assess whether the contract may be terminated and prepare a claim for repayment.

A criminal complaint may be warranted where the evidence suggests that payment was obtained through false statements or an abuse of trust. It should explain not only that no goods, work, or services were provided, but also who made the relevant statements, what was allegedly false, how it induced the payment, which account received the money, and what happened afterwards. Ukrainian counsel can prepare the complaint and represent your company before investigators, prosecutors, and the courts.

Under Ukrainian law, the responsible law-enforcement officer or prosecutor must enter the relevant information in the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations within 24 hours of receiving the complaint and begin an investigation. If that does not happen, Ukrainian counsel may challenge the omission before an investigating judge. Entry in the register merely opens the investigation; it does not prove fraud, freeze assets, or return the money.

You will not usually need to travel to Ukraine for the initial steps. Your lawyer can act for the company once you provide the documents and necessary authority. During the investigation, the lawyer can submit evidence, file motions, and challenge procedural decisions or inaction where necessary. You may be asked for further explanations or original documents.

Court proceedings and a criminal investigation may run in parallel because they serve different purposes. The account of events, parties, and amounts must remain consistent in both. Two issues must be monitored separately: the limitation period applicable to the contractual claim and the debtor's asset position. Filing a criminal complaint does not stop the limitation period from running or automatically freeze property.

Once you decide whether to seek performance or repayment, the next question is whether further action is commercially worthwhile. A lawyer reviews the debtor's current status, registered real estate and vehicles, pending court disputes, existing enforcement proceedings, and insolvency records. Public sources do not show account balances, so the assessment should distinguish between assets that can be confirmed, information that is unavailable, and the effect of those limits on the prospects of recovery.

The next step depends on the contract and the circumstances. If a pre-action notice is required by contract or law, or would help make your position clear, the demand should set out one consistent remedy. A demand for delivery or completion should specify what must be provided and the final deadline. A demand for repayment should state the legal basis, amount, and payment deadline. Demanding both performance and repayment of the same amount creates a contradiction that the other party may use in its defence.

Before filing a claim, the lawyer identifies the court with jurisdiction, organises the evidence, and tells you which corporate documents and translations are required. Once the court opens proceedings, the defendant may file a defence, both parties submit their evidence, and the court decides the claim. If the court rules in your favour and the judgment becomes final and enforceable, it can issue a writ of execution. Compulsory enforcement begins only then.

If there is credible evidence that assets may be sold, transferred, or concealed, the lawyer may seek interim measures at the same time as filing the claim. The application must identify the measure sought, the relevant property or amount, and the facts showing why a future judgment may otherwise be difficult or impossible to enforce. The court decides the application; non-payment alone does not justify an asset freeze.

Once the writ of execution is issued, the lawyer applies to a state or private enforcement officer, provides available information about the debtor's accounts and property, monitors the enforcement process, and challenges inaction where necessary. Only the enforcement officer has the statutory power to trace and seize assets. If the debtor has no assets that can be reached in enforcement, or their value is insufficient, the judgment may remain unenforced. That is why the debtor's asset position should be assessed before the claim is filed.

A Serbian company entered into a contract with a Ukrainian sole proprietor in April 2022 for the supply of sawn timber and paid an advance of €9,276.80. The goods were not delivered. The parties had other transactions, and some payments had been made by another foreign company. The defendant relied on that history to argue that the amount claimed was not connected to the Serbian buyer's contract.

Rather than combining every transaction into one claim, counsel reconstructed each payment separately by contract, payer, recipient, and the date on which it was credited. The contract in dispute was then matched with the relevant payment and bank records. This showed that the claimant's €9,276.80 payment related to that contract and distinguished it from the parties' other dealings.

The claim sought termination of the contract and repayment of that advance. It did not allege fraud because the contract, payment, and non-delivery supported a contractual remedy without the need to prove criminal intent at the time the money was received.

On 20 February 2025, the Commercial Court of Cherkasy Region ruled in the claimant's favour, terminated the contract, and awarded €9,276.80 plus UAH 6,114.56 in court fees. The court issued writs of execution in May 2025.

The practical lesson is that suspected fraud should not displace the remedy the documents can already prove. Here, separating the transactions allowed the company to obtain an enforceable judgment without proving criminal intent. Any evidence of deception before payment would still need to be assessed separately for a criminal complaint.