Scrutiny of job contracts between Košice-based heating plant TEKO and former senior managers has shown that in some cases managers’ contracts were terminated illegally, the TASR newswire reported Miroslav Homola of the National Property Fund (FNM) as saying on Tuesday, March 8. As a result, he said, the severance payments claimed under their terms were also invalid.
Based on the FNM inquiry’s findings, TEKO’s management is set to file lawsuits in several cases and will be demanding that the termination contracts are ruled invalid. If successful, it could mean that high severance bonuses received by some former executives, who were nominated by the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, will ruled be null and void. "The company will also begin to claw back previously paid severance bonuses," Homola said. The inquiry was directed at four directors at TEKO, appointed after last year's parliamentary elections on June 12, some of whom accepted severance bonuses worth €90,000-100,000 after only a few weeks on the job.
The severance bonuses, widely criticised as excessive, became a bone of contention after the media reported on the issue earlier this year. In response to the affair, the governing parties agreed to put an end to the practice of governing politicians nominating senior managers to companies fully or partly owned by the state.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
9. Mar 2011 at 14:00
