in april 2017, a court in pechersk, kyiv seized akhmetov's shares in ukrtelecom and trimob, telephony and cellphone companies owned by akhmetov. the assets seized were part of an investigation into the privatization of ukrtelecom in 2011 and akhmetov's ties to victor yanukovich, exiled to russia in 2014. scm has denied all allegations and issued a statement saying they would defend their ownership rights. on 19 october 2017, the state ruled that akhmetov was to return all ownership rights to the state and pay a fine of $82 million for failing to fulfill privatization obligations. in december 2017, as part of the ukrtelecom ownership legal battle, a court in cyprus issued an order to freeze $820 million in assets held by akhmetov. in january 2018, a dutch court issued an order, based on the same litigation, to "freeze scm's netherlands-registered businesses, which include ukraine's largest steel company metinvest and largest private power and coal producer, dtek."