BRATISLAVA, December 21, (WEBNOVINY) — Environment Minister Jozsef Nagy a filed criminal complaint against the US-based company Interblue Group without specifying concrete names regarding the unpaid additional price for sold emission allowances (AAU). The ministry suspects that fraud may have been committed against the Slovak Republic. “We are filing the criminal complaint because the Environment Ministry was not paid 15 million euro,” Nagy said. Proceedings is not under way against an unknown offender for damaging Slovakia in the disadvantageous sale of AAU emission allowances. However, the ministry admits that proving the disadvantageousness of the transaction will be hard, as it did not take place at a formal exchange, but through a negotiation without any overview of market prices. The minister filed the criminal complaint despite concerns that the department will not get the additional payment of 15 million euro anyway. “We, however, cannot let this case become a precedent, that someone fails to abide their minimal obligation,” said Nagy, adding that the buyer got the AAUs at half the price, so the company should at least pay what it owes.
The Ministry of Environment rejects the argument of Interblue Group that it failed to present a valid Green Investment Scheme, to which the additional payment was bound. The department also refuses to acknowledge the successor company with its seat in Switzerland. The US-based company Interblue Group LLC supposedly ceased to exist at the end of December 2009 without informing the Slovak department of Environment, owing it 15 million euro.
The case of Environment Ministry’s sale of 15 million tons of AAUs lead tensions in the previous government. Two environment ministers from the SNS party, who had claimed that the sale to Interblue Group was as profitable as possible, had to leave their office, to be later replaced by the Deputy Prime Minister Dusan Caplovic (SMER-SD) and then by a minister nominated by SMER-SD party, which was a violation of the coalition agreement at that time. The Environment Ministry as such was later abolished as a state institution, only to be recreated a couple of months later by the new administration.
SITA