Another Croatian member of oil company INA's management board, Ivan Kresic, on Friday testified at the trial of former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and said that Croatian government representatives had no influence on the decision making process in INA, adding that the company was run entirely by its strategic partner MOL.
Kresic thus back the testimony by Davor Mayer, a member of Croatian oil company INA's management board who took a statement yesterday. Mayer testified that changes to the shareholders' agreement between INA and MOL had entirely transferred management rights in INA to the strategic partner MOL. Mayer also said that under the changes to the shareholders' agreement, adopted at the time of Sanader's term in office as PM, the operational management of the Croatian oil company was entirely transferred to MOL, namely to INA's management board chair who was appointed by MOL, which betrayed Croatia's national interests.
Kresic too said that although responsible for business activities, INA's management board had no operational powers, as the management board is directly ran by its president alongside the board of executive directors.
"Most of these decision don't even make it to the board and the board doesn't even know about them," Kresic said.
Croat members of the board, according to Kresic, learned that MOL has at its disposal privileged information which are not available to the Croatian government as the second stakeholder, which is why amendments to the document have been requested a year ago. These amendments are called the list of decision making powers, he added. It is a very important document which enables information from INA to travel to the responsible people in MOL and then back to INA for a decision to be made, Kresic said.
The president of INA's supervisory board, Davor Stern, was expected to testify today but after the defence announced a number of questions for cross-examination, Judge Ivan Turudic postponed Stern's testimony for May.
The Hungarian oil company MOL issued a statement on Thursday afternoon dismissing as untrue statements by Davor Mayer, a member of Croatian oil company INA's management board, that INA was run entirely by MOL.
In this case Sanader is charged with having taken from MOL's director 10 million euros in bribes to enable MOL to take over management rights in INA, which was then to have divested its unprofitable gas business.
Apart from bribery charges, Sanader is indicted in this case also for war profiteering, namely for taking a commission from the Austrian Hypo bank from which Croatia in the early 1990s took a loan for the purchase of embassy buildings.
