October 26 (SeeNews) - Croatia's Supreme Court said it upheld the guilty verdicts against former prime minister Ivo Sanader and the CEO of Hungarian energy company MOL Zsolt Hernadi on charges of corruption related to the privatisation of Croatian oil and gas company INA [ZSE:INA] by MOL some ten years ago.
The Supreme Court decided to uphold the verdict from 2019 issued by the Zagreb County Court, according to which Sanader has to serve six years in jail for colluding with Hernadi to arrange, in exchange for 10 million euro ($11.6 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, the Supreme Court said in a statement on Monday.
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.
In 2014, Croatia's Supreme Court upheld an earlier decision of the Zagreb County Court to try Hernadi in absentia on charges of bribing Sanader to allow the state-controlled Hungarian energy group to obtain a dominant position in INA.
Back then, the Supreme Court overturned Sanader's first eight-and-a-half year jail sentence in the bribery case issued by the Zagreb County Court in 2012.
MOL is the largest single shareholder in INA with a 49.08% stake, followed by the Croatian government with 44.84%, while the remainder belongs to smaller 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 October 20 on the Zagreb Stock Exchange, when they closed at 3,380 kuna ($522/449 euro), up 0.60% from the previous closing price.
(1 euro=7.523 Croatian kuna)
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