December 30 (SeeNews) - Croatia's government decided to put on hold attempts to buy back the stake in oil and gas group INA [ZSE:INA] held by Hungarian peer MOL, prime minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday.
The decision was made in the light of the new legal context created by the Croatian Supreme Court's final verdict that former prime minister Ivo Sanader is guilty of taking bribes from MOL CEO Zsolt Hernadi during the privatisation of INA some 10 years ago, Plenkovic told a weekly cabinet session, according to a video file published by state broadcaster HRT.
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“In these changed circumstances we consider it appropriate to put on hold the process of potential buyback of the shares that MOL is holding in INA until the new legal situation gets resolved,” Plenkovic said.
Consequently, the government decided to seek a review of the December 2016 ruling in favour of MOL by Geneva-based Arbitral Tribunal of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in a case that Croatia had brought against the Hungarian energy group. The government would seek an annulment of amendments to the agreement on relations between the shareholders in INA and a master agreement on the gas business, both signed in 2009, which Croatia argues were obtained through bribery. Due to the new legal circumstances following the Supreme Court's ruling, these agreements are no longer tenable, HRT quoted Plenkovic as saying.
In October, the Croatian Supreme Court decided to uphold the verdict issued by the Zagreb County Court in 2019, according to which Sanader has to serve six years in jail for colluding with Hernadi to arrange, in exchange for 10 million euro ($11.3 million), an amendment to a contract regulating the relations between INA's shareholders by which the Croatian government ceded management rights in INA to MOL.
Hernadi was given a two-year prison sentence by the Zagreb County Court which was also upheld by the Supreme Court. Sanader has been in prison, serving a sentence issued in another corruption case, while Hernadi was tried in absentia as Hungary refused to extradite him.
MOL is the largest shareholder in INA with a 49.08% stake, followed by the Croatian government with 44.84%. The remainder is held by a number of minority shareholders.
In August 2020, Croatian media quoted economy minister Tomislav Coric as saying the government has received international investment firm Lazard's due diligence report on INA and was ready to start talks on the planned purchase of MOL's stake in the company.
INA's shares last traded on the Zagreb Stock Exchange on Wednesday, when they closed unchanged at 3,500 kuna ($526/465 euro).
(1 euro=7.521 Croatian kuna)
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