May 8 (SeeNews) - The head of Croatia's Constitutional Court said on Tuesday that the law on crisis management at ailing Agrokor concern adopted in April last year complies with the constitution of the country.
"According to the Constitutional Court, it was necessary to pass the contested law as an extraordinary measure, which in the case of Agrokor was used to prevent the expected impact on the overall economic system in Croatia in a situation where the economic indicators and the circumstances clearly pointed to systemic risks", the president of the Constitutional Court, Miroslav Separovic, said at a news conference aired live by broadcaster RTL.
The Constitutional Court did not sustain the proposals for assessment of the constitutionality of the law, commonly known as Lex Agrokor, submitted by a number of individuals and legal entities, Separovic added.
Prior to making its decision, the court obtained five opinions from the government, as well as expert opinions from a professor at the Zagreb Law School, the president of the Constitutional Court said.
Agrokor owner Ivica Todoric said in November last year that he would ask the country's top court to rule on the constitutionality of the law, which had allowed the government to seize managerial control of the ailing food-to-retail concern.
Todoric said at the time that the law itself and the crisis administrator appointed under it to lead the restructuring of the troubled concern, are unlawful and detrimental to Agrokor and the Croatian economy.
On April 6 last year, Croatia's parliament passed the special legislation on companies of systemic importance to shield the country's economy from big corporate bankrupcies. Companies of systemic importance, according to Lex Agrokor, are those that employ over 5,000 workers and whose obligations top 7.5 billion kuna ($1.1 billion/1 billion euro).
Croatia's prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic, said at the time that the law will also protect Croatian taxpayers because it applies to companies which employ 11.5% of the country's workforce and contribute 34.6% of the country's GDP.
(1 euro=7.39225 kuna)