Renowned lawyer Veljko Miljevic appeared on N1 television's Novi Dan programme on Wednesday morning and commented on whether the lawyer Boris Savoric and his law firm would need to disclose if they had issued a receipt for allowing the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) to use their their offices to film the party's campaign ad in 2016.

On Monday, N1 reported that a campaign ad made by the party for the 2016 parliamentary election, and featuring the HDZ leader and current Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, was filmed at the Savoric & Partners law firm in a business building in Zagreb city centre.

Savoric was previously mentioned as one of the consultants involved in the e-mail group that had drafted the controversial Lex Agrokor bill in early 2017. The publication of e-mail correpondence led to former Economy Minister Martina Dalic to hand in her resignation earlier this month.

Miljevic was asked to comment on recent developments and whether the public has the right to know if this was a donation.

“Of course the public has the right to know the answer to that question. This part about allowing company’s premises to be used to film a campaign ad can be regulated as a voluntary campaign contribution or donation. A donation can include not only cash, but also services rendered. Rendering a service without receiving payment for it can be considered a donation. For donations which take the form of a service – as is this case of providing office space to film a TV ad – persons who are giving the donation must issue a receipt which must state the market value of the service rendered, it must say which political party this was done for, and in the last part it must say that the receipt is not subject to payment,” Miljevic said.

On Tuesday the Croatian Bar Association (HOK) launched disciplinary proceedings against Savoric and two other lawyers, saying that Savoric and his former partner Smrcek are suspected of having worked at the same time for the Russian VTB bank – one of Agrokor’s biggest creditors with a €300 million claim – and on drafting the Lex Agrokor bill which allowed state-appointed emergency management to take over the company.

“Political parties must keep records on this type of donations and issue receipts confirming the donation was received… According to law, if a company does not issue a donation receipt and does not disclose the value of the donated service, then this could be considered a violation, and they could be fined,” Miljevic said.

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