Guides on checking Ukrainian counterparties
These are working notes for people who have to make a decision about a Ukrainian company and cannot travel there to look at it. Each guide walks through one job: confirming who really owns a business, screening it against sanctions and AML lists, finding a debtor's property, or reading a market and its players from open data.
Every source named here is public. Where a register has been closed or narrowed, the guide says so rather than pretending the data is still reachable.
How to verify a Ukrainian company before signing a contract
The full order of checks before a contract: the state register, the people behind the company, sanctions exposure, Russia links, courts and debts. Start here if you have never checked a Ukrainian counterparty before, since the other guides pick up where each step of this one ends.
Read the guide →Fake account removal for hire: what you can buy and what you cannot
Who actually removes a fake account, what work is worth buying, and why a promised success rate or a per-account fee is a warning sign.
Read the guide →Evidence for a fake account complaint: what to record and how
A complaint about a fake account works when it shows what is forged, where and when. What to record, how to keep it verifiable, and what not to do.
Read the guide →A fake Telegram account in your company's name: what to do in the first 24 hours
Someone is posing as your company on Telegram and collecting money. A first-day plan: what to record, where to report and how to warn customers.
Read the guide →Argus Score: how a counterparty check becomes a single number
Five weighted blocks, a 0 to 100 result and four decision bands. What the score is built from, how to read it, and what it deliberately does not measure.
Read the guide →Offshore leaks in due diligence: what ICIJ data proves, and what it does not
Panama, Paradise and Pandora Papers are free and public. What they prove, what they cannot prove, and the three mistakes that make leak data useless in a check.
Read the guide →Sanctions evasion through transit jurisdictions: five patterns that survive a screening
Georgia, Armenia, the UAE and Turkiye do not apply EU or US sanctions. Five recurring patterns that keep a counterparty legally clean and commercially toxic.
Read the guide →Satellite verification: checking that the plant your counterparty describes actually exists
Documents can be forged and registers can mislead. Satellite imagery cannot. How GEOSINT verifies that a claimed plant or warehouse actually exists.
Read the guide →Buying a company in Ukraine: what to check before you sign
What to check before buying a company in Ukraine: hidden liabilities, real beneficial owners, encumbered assets, sanctions exposure. READY / CAUTION / STOP.
Read the guide →Winning the case is half of it. The other half is whether there is anything to collect
A judgment is not money. Why enforcement fails against a solvent-looking debtor, where assets actually sit, and why recoverability is assessed before you file.
Read the guide →Pre-litigation: assessing a claim before you pay a lawyer
Before you pay a lawyer: how strong is the evidence, is the debtor collectable, who is on the other side. One memo in 24-72 hours, price fixed after a short brief.
Read the guide →How to verify a person before a deal: partner, contractor, hired director
Partner, contractor or hired director: what open sources lawfully show about a person, which red flags stop a deal, and where the legal line runs.
Read the guide →After the contract is signed: monitoring counterparty risk in real time
A clean check ages fast. Six signals that hit your money after the contract is signed, what a missed one costs, and why manual checking does not hold.
Read the guide →How a law firm works with external intelligence: due diligence under your own brand
How a firm uses external intelligence under its own brand: why it is not outsourcing legal work, how conflicts and confidentiality are handled, what it costs.
Read the guide →Securing a claim: stopping a debtor from moving assets before judgment
Interim relief only works against assets still held by the debtor. What a court needs to grant it, and why the asset map is built before you file.
Read the guide →Is it legal to check a counterparty? Where the line runs in OSINT and due diligence
What you may lawfully collect on a counterparty, what nobody may collect, the GDPR basis for it, and why an unlawfully sourced fact damages your own case.
Read the guide →Who ultimate beneficial owners are, and why they are hidden
A UBO is the person who actually controls a company. Why ownership gets concealed, the four structures used to do it, and what it costs to sign without knowing.
Read the guide →The Black Sea triangle: where a Turkish, Romanian or Bulgarian counterparty hides a russia trail
Turkey does not mirror EU and US sanctions lists, so a counterparty can pass local screening and still be toxic to your bank. What is open in TR, RO and BG.
Read the guide →Market radar: why you see the shift that costs you a quarter last
Your sales report shows a market shift after it has taken the money. Which early signals a radar catches, what lateness costs, and when it is overkill.
Read the guide →How to watch a competitor legally without crossing the line
Competitive intelligence is lawful while the sources are open. What you may track, where the line runs, and why occasional googling loses to a system.
Read the guide →How to enter a new market: six steps that take the risk out
Demand, size and margin, competitors, price entry point, barriers, pilot. Six checks in order, each worth doing only if the previous one cleared.
Read the guide →Why business intelligence matters to an owner
Three decisions where not knowing costs most, why searching online is not a check, what an error costs against what a report costs, and when it is overkill.
Read the guide →The limits of intelligence: what we do not promise, and why that works in your favour
Promising to find everything is a red flag. The three real limits — law, data availability, time — and why an honest boundary is cheaper than a good promise.
Read the guide →Why reputation matters to a business
Reputation is an asset that prices deals. What it earns, what losing it costs, and the three sides of it: the counterparty, the market, and your own exposure.
Read the guide →How much a counterparty check costs, and what you are paying for
What each level includes, what pushes the price up, and where a free registry look-up stops being enough.
Read the guide →Checking a Ukrainian counterparty in wartime: russia links, transit, sanctions exposure
A clean Ukrainian register does not clear a counterparty in wartime. Where russia links hide, which sanctions lists to screen, and what your bank will ask.
Read the guide →How to check whether a counterparty has Russian ties
A clean Ukrainian register does not mean no Russian ties. Six places the link hides: owners, parent firms, renamed subsidiaries, goods, transit, sanctions.
Read the guide →Due diligence evidence: when a report holds up in court
A screenshot with no source or timestamp is not evidence. How chain of custody, the five levels of proof and Expert Declarations work in practice.
Read the guide →Is a registry check enough to verify a Ukrainian company?
A registry extract proves a company exists. It will not show who controls it or a sanctions link through an intermediary. Where the line really is.
Read the guide →What a wrong counterparty actually costs
A bad counterparty is rarely one loss. Frozen prepayment, a blocked payment, replacing a supplier, litigating abroad: how to price the risk before you sign.
Read the guide →How to check the ultimate beneficial owner of a Ukrainian company
The declared owner is often not the real one. Where UBO data sits, how nominees and offshore layers break the chain, and what to do when the register stops answering.
Read the guide →How to run an AML check on a company
What an AML check actually covers, how much of it you can run yourself at no cost, the point where free screening stops being useful, and what an AML risk score measures.
Read the guide →Asset tracing in Ukraine: finding a debtor's assets
Winning a judgment and collecting on it are two different problems. Which registers still show a debtor's property, what the 2026 access rules changed, and which channels remain open.
Read the guide →Market research in Ukraine: how to size a market before you enter
Ukraine publishes a lot of usable demand and pricing data. Which sources show real volumes and active players, and where those numbers stop being reliable.
Read the guide →Competitor analysis in Ukraine: how to read a rival from open data
Owners, contract prices they actually charge, disputes they are fighting, and the point where the public trail runs out. Legal sources only, no pretexting.
Read the guide →Where stolen Ukrainian grain goes
Occupied ports, ship-to-ship transfers in the Black Sea, flags of convenience and end markets, and what that route means for a buyer, a bank or an insurer sitting at the end of it.
Read the guide →The Ukrainian-language index carries a wider set of guides, written in Ukrainian: see the full index. Nothing here is legal advice. How we stay inside the law is set out in Within the law.