ENVIRONMENT Minister Jozef Medveď has hired legal experts from the US to help Slovakia resolve issues involved in its sale of excess CO2 emissions, the Sme daily reported. The ministry has not revealed further details.
The lawyers are expected to help the state obtain €15 million which Slovakia is seeking to collect from the Interblue Group, which no longer exists, but was based in the US. Slovakia was supposed to receive this amount as a bonus payment for using the proceeds from the emissions sale for green projects, in particular the state programme to fit thermal insulation to housing blocks.
Laws in the state of Washington, where Interblue Group was registered, make it possible to make claims against companies which have ceased to exist. But Sme wrote that a potential problem may be that Slovakia did not fulfil all of its contractual commitments.
