Parliament's Finance, Budget and Currency Committee should have been informed about the agreement on settling the legal case between Tipos and Czech businessman Radovan Vitek, but the Finance Ministry didn't submit the document, asserting it's a trade secret, Finance Ministry state secretary Peter Kazimír said on November 26.
"We don't have any problems with disclosing the agreement on settlement and know-how ... but the agreement contains a clause according to which the information isn't available to a third party without the permission of both contractors," explained Kazimír, adding that the ministry asked both sides for their permission on Wednesday.
"As soon as we get the permission, I'm hopeful we will disclose all the required information with the committee," Kazimír said.
He explained that Tipos hasn't signed the agreement directly with Vitek, but with the Cypriot company Lemikon Limited, which is the owner of Czech Sportka. This is what has complicated the disclosure, Kazimír said.
SDKÚ vice-chairman Ivan Mikloš considers the ministry's behaviour arrogant. According to him, the ministry must have known what contract the committee was interested in, as the case has already been under heavy media scrutiny. If the ministry really wanted to disclose the information, they would have informed the committee on November 25 that it asked for a non-existing agreement in its resolution, and the committee would have changed the wording of the resolution.
The Slovak Supreme Court ruled recently that Tipos must, by the end of November, pay Sk1.9 billion (€63.3 million) to Radovan Vitek, who has taken over Tipos's debt to Sportka. The decision was made in an eight-year legal case between Tipos and Sportka for stealing Sportka's know-how. The state, as the Finance Ministry is the sole shareholder in Tipos, is to pay Sk1.4 billion (€46.47 million) of the award, while Tipos is to pay Sk500 million (€16.6 million) from its own reserves.
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
