THE INFAMOUS Gorilla case has been mentioned in a June 2012 report prepared by an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) working group focused on bribery in international business transactions, which the Slovak government acknowledged on March 20.
The authors of the report recommended that Slovakia “take the necessary steps to ensure that investigations and prosecutions of foreign bribery cases are not influenced by considerations of national economic interest, the potential effect upon relations with another state or the identity of the natural or legal persons involved, and that foreign bribery allegations are promptly investigated and prosecuted as appropriate”, the report reads.
A team from the working group made its on-site visit to Slovakia on February 7-9, 2012, amidst the Gorilla protests, which were a response to the case involving the so-called Gorilla file, which is alleged to include transcripts of wiretapped conversations involving top government politicians, recorded in 2005-06. The OECD report calls the case “a high-profile domestic bribery case”.
The OECD working group also noted that there are strong doubts about Slovakia’s ability to investigate domestic bribery cases and to prosecute foreign bribery cases.
