THE BRATISLAVA district court has dropped charges against the authorized representative of Siemens Business Services, Peter Prónay, who was suspected of bribery in relation to a bid for the development of a state treasury IT system.
The head of the tender selection committee, Daniel Ferjanček, claimed that Prónay offered him Sk1.5 million (€35,900) to vote in favour of his firm. However, the court ruled that there was a lack of evidence supporting Ferjanček's allegation.
According to the daily Pravda, Prónay assumes that the whole case was intended to "disqualify and slander" Siemens in the state tender worth Sk1.28 billion (€30.65 million), which was announced by the Finance Ministry in 2001.
After several failed attempts at selecting a supplier, the tender was cancelled, and the state order for supplying the IT system went to the Hewlett-Packard (HP) company through closed negotiations.
15. Sep 2003 at 0:00 | From press reports
