Representatives of the Penta financial group are considering filing a legal complaint against Interior Minister Daniel Lipšic for causing damage to the company’s reputation after he recently made statements about Privatbanka, a bank owned by Penta, the TASR newswire reported.
“We view the character of the information and the way of presenting it by Lipšic at a press conference on Wednesday [February 8] ... as a gross incursion into the rights of the bank and its shareholder [Penta],” said the company’s spokesperson, as quoted by TASR, adding that the statement harmed the good reputation of the bank and Penta before the public and the bank’s customers.
Lipšic had reportedly stated that there are suspicions about money laundering taking place in Privatbanka in 2009-2010 when 248 questionable business transactions were allegedly carried out and that the bank failed to report these operations, worth €16.5 million in total, to the financial police even though it was legally obliged to do so.
“These were really unusual deposits in high figures from a rather strange set of persons associated with financial groups and mafia,” Lipšic stated, as quoted by TASR.
Lipšic added that the information about the questionable transactions should have been reported to the financial police but someone from bank’s management stopped it.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
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