July 30 (SeeNews) - Slovenia's supreme court has ruled that the competition protection agency, AVK, has to return without delay to Croatia's Agrokor its holdings in Slovenian retailer Mercator that were temporarily seized last year, Agrokor's successor, Fortenova Group, said on Thursday.
"The Supreme Court declared the seizure of shares to be unlawful, arguing that AVK had no legal grounds to issue a ruling to seize the shares," Fortenova, to which the Mercator shares are to be transferred, said in a statement.
In December, AVK decided to temporarily seize Agrokor's holdings in Mercator to ensure the enforcement of a non-final ruling that imposed a 53.9 million euro ($63.3 million) penalty on Agrokor for its failure to notify the competition authority about its 2016 acquisition of UAE-based Ardeya Global - owner of Slovenian water bottler Costella.
In June, however, the Ljubljana district court reduced the 53.9 million euro fine imposed by AVK on Agrokor to just 1 million euro.
"We expect for the free disposal of shares to be made possible within shortest time and are still planning to realise the transfer of Mercator shares to Fortenova Group by the end of this year," Fortenova's CEO, Fabris Perusko, said in the company statement.
"By the transfer from Agrokor, a company in bankruptcy, Mercator will find itself in the ownership of the stable and capital-strong Fortenova Group, whose ultimate goal is to make Mercator a strong local-supplier-oriented regional retailer," Perusko noted.
The business operations of troubled food-to-retail concern Agrokor were transferred to the newly formed Fortenova Group in April 2019 under a debt settlement agreement with Agrokor's creditors endorsed by a Zagreb court in June 2018.
($=0.8512 euro)
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