The chairman of the parliamentary Anti-corruption Council and Most party MP, Nikola Grmoja, on Monday levelled serious accusations against Fortenova Group Executive Director Fabris Perusko, claiming that he had defrauded the company to benefit tycoon Pavao Vujnovac.

“This is a huge scandal and I expect investigative bodies, DORH (State Attorney’s Office), USKOK (anti-corruption agency) and the police to come knocking at the door of (PM Andrej) Plenkovic’s commissioner for Agrokor, Fabris Perusko, who made it possible for tycoon Vujnovac to take over Fortenova, defrauding the company of at least 66 million euros,” Grmoja told a news conference in the parliament.

Grmoja said that he was in possession of documents confirming his allegations and announced that he would file a criminal report next week against Perusko and collect signatures from other members of parliament for the report.

Grmoja presented a detailed chronology of the case, starting with the time when the former owner of the Agrokor food and retail conglomerate, Ivica Todoric, bought the Ciglane Zagreb company and sold, in a fictitious deal, to the newly-established companies Stela Nekretnine and Ciglana Nekretnine, the properties of the Konzum retailer in Zagreb’s Crnomerec and Tresnjevka districts, in order to obtain money and keep ownership of Agrokor.

Everything went according to plan until the adoption of “Lex Agrokor”, when Stela Nekretnine and Ciglana Nekretnine terminated the lease contract with Konzum and filed a lawsuit seeking an unpaid amount of €26 million. Fortenova refused to pay the claim as the companies concerned were fictitious, and Zagrebacka Banka, which had issued the loan for the transaction, launched the procedure to sell the claim, Grmoja said.

“Even though Perusko was aware of the fact that Stela Nekretnine and Ciglana Nekretnine were phantom companies of Fortenova Group and that Fortenova had a call option and could claim back ownership for a mere €200,000, he turned down Zagrebačka Banka’s offer for refinancing or purchase of the claim,” he said.

Grmoja went on to say that after that, Prvo Plinarsko Drustvo bought the claim from Zagrebacka Banka for €16 million even though there was an offer worth €43 million, and that Perusko did not want to refinance or purchase the debt to Zagrebacka Banka but insisted that Vujnovac should do it and buy the properties for 200,000 euros.

“Fortenova Group did not buy the claims, did not ask for the repayment of its loans, did not buy the companies even though it had the right of pre-emption, but surrendered everything to Vujnovac,” he said.

Most party MP Zvonimir Troskot said that the goal was for Vujnovac to obtain Fortenova Group below the market price.

As the emergency administrator in Fortenova, Perusko should have protected the interests of the creditors yet he failed to do so and favoured the future stakeholder, Troskot said, concluding that Vujnovac would be controlling more than 10% of Croatia’s GDP and have enormous economic and political power.