The Index.hr news website released on Friday new e-mails related to the so-called Hotmail affair involving correspondence exchanged between various consultants and former Economy Minister Martina Dalic on the drafting of the controversial Lex Agrokor bill in early 2017.

According to Index.hr, the new e-mails may show that some of Agrokor’s suppliers and creditors were put in a favoured position by the emergency administration which took over the company to save it from bankruptcy.

The first task of the state-appointed emergency administrator at the indebted food and retail group, Ante Ramljak, following his appointment in April 2017, was to stabilise business operations at Agrokor. This was supposed to be achieved by freezing all of creditor’s claims dated prior to April 10, and roll them over and add to claims that a Creditors’ Council would decide about through the debt settlement process, Index.hr reported.

On the other hand, all new claims created after April 10, as a result of Agrokor doing business, were supposed to be paid using company’s revenue. However, Ramljak was authorised to approve payments of claims from before April 10 whenever deemed necessary to ensure that the company continues doing business. There was also a third category of claims – which referred to claims created before April 10, but maturing after that date, so they were all paid immediately instead of waiting for the debt settlement to be agreed.

The exact amounts that have been paid, and to which suppliers and creditors, has never been disclosed to the public.

But the e-mails published by Index.hr indicate that Ramljak sometimes buckled under pressure by some suppliers, and gave them a treatment that others did not have. They were allowed to convert their old claims into the third category, saving their claims from being written off in the debt settlement.

Agrokor still hasn’t provided to the commercial court a full list of debts that came into being before the emergency administrator took over the company on April 10, and which have since been paid either in part or in full.

“This is a very complex document which contains a list of dozens of thousands of transactions, for all 77 companies included in the emergency administration procedure, and which will soon be finalised,” Agrokor told Index.hr.

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