Following the Zagreb County Court's decision to find former prime minister Ivo Sanader guilty of bribe taking from MOL to ensure that Hungarian energy group a dominant position in the leading Croatian oil and gas group, MOL on Tuesday issued a statement in which it underlines that it has several times refuted the allegations against the company and that it will persist in denying such claims. The Hungarian company also believes that this case has more to do with the politics in Croatia rather than with INA and MOL.
"It is not our duty to comment the first sentence the Zagreb County Court made today. Being the biggest investor in Croatia, obviously we need to respect it and regard it as a decision of an independent juridical body of the Republic of Croatia," reads the press release which MOL issued on its web site.
"This is an initial, preliminary ruling; we have many times rejected categorically the accusations made against MOL and we will continue to do so," the company said on its web site.
"However we consider this case to be less about the companies that have been named, but more as a political matter within Croatia. We do believe that you can not convict someone if there is no motive, crime or evidence. Namely, no special reason was necessary that MOL as the largest single shareholder takes over control over a company which needed to be saved from a technical bankruptcy."
"Our intentions in acquiring our shareholding in INA, built up over many years, have always been positive; as the largest foreign investor in Croatia we want to contribute to make INA even more successful and profitable," according to MOL's press release.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Zagreb court found Sanader guilty of war profiteering in the Hypo bank case and sentenced him to three and a half years in prison and it also found him guilty of having taken bribes from MOL and sentenced him to seven and a half years, deciding to impose a single prison term of ten years.
The court established that while being the premier, Sanader received five million euros from MOL.
MOL has a 49.1% stake in INA, and the Croatian government holds 44.84% of INA shares.
With the 2009 amendments to the shareholding agreement, MOL was given the controlling rights. INA's six-member managing board has three Croatian representatives and three representatives from MOL. However, MOL nominates the board chairman who has a swaying vote. With the enforcement of the 2009 changes, Croatian representatives feel to be sidelined from the running of INA, according to the claims from Croatian executives.
Following the announcement of the first-instance judgement, the price of MOL share on the Hungarian stock exchange went down by 2.93% from its price at the end of trading on Monday.
