INA has always cooperated with state agencies and institutions and will continue to do so in the future, the Croatian oil company said on Tuesday in comment on media reports that the national anti-corruption agency USKOK was investigating allegations of wrongdoing whereby INA was allegedly defrauded of more than 1.5 billion kuna.
The company made the statement when asked if USKOK investigators had requested it officially to make available to them documents on its purchase of oil and oil products in 2008 and 2009.
USKOK spokesman Vuk Djuricic would not comment on the media reports.
Without citing its source, Vecernji List daily said on Tuesday that USKOK had requested from INA complete documentation on the purchase of oil and oil products in 2008 and 2009 whereby INA allegedly incurred a loss of some 1.5 billion kuna. The daily said the loss resulted in the company's financial collapse, a huge tax debt and the Hungarian oil company MOL's takeover of INA.
Vecernji List said that a number of INA's former senior executives, led by the then management board member in charge of finances, Zalan Bacs, could find themselves under investigation.
The investigation is reportedly to cover a number of INA's former business partners, including Imre Fazekas.
Fazekas, a Hungarian oil magnate, has been mentioned in the ongoing trial of former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in the INA-MOL case, where he is expected to testify as a witness. USKOK alleges that Fazekas was involved in the transfer of money to the bank account of a Swiss company owned by Croatian businessman Robert Jezic. The money in question, five million euros, was allegedly paid by MOL to Sanader as a half of a 10-million-euro bribe in exchange for which Sanader transferred to MOL management rights in INA, from which he was then expected to separate its loss-making gas business.
