Reinkind was testifying in a corruption case dubbed Spice, in which former Deputy Prime Minister Damir Polancec, former Podravka executives and their business partners are charged with an attempt to take over Podravka, while they claim that they only defended it from a hostile takeover. The accused have claimed from the outset that it was Rieber & Son that planned to take over Podravka, while the prosecution rejected such claims saying that through their fraudulent operations they defrauded the Koprivnica-based company of 400 million kuna.

Reinkind, who had served as CEO until September 2007, said that Rieber & Son had become interested in Podravka's shares after the Croatian company became its competitor in several countries. By purchasing 19.99 per cent of Podravka, the Norwegian company wanted to prevent Podravka's shares ending up in the hands of some other big food company and also to have their representatives on the Supervisory Board and thus influence decision-making processes. However, Rieber & Son did not want to buy the shares directly but through the CAIB brokerage, owned by the Bank of Austria.

We had expected that the Privatisation Fund would sell its shares sooner or later. CAIB thought the same, and if that happened, we would have grounds for further action, Reinkind said, confirming that a few years earlier his company had planned to buy the shares of Podravka owned by the EBRD.

The Norwegian company's plan fell through because Podravka's shares rose, so Rieber & Son sold its shares and abandoned the plan for further acquisition.

Reinkind said they had notified the then CEO of Podravka, Darko Marinac, about their plan to buy the shares, as well as Polancec because the government owned the biggest stake in the company. He said that after they backed out of the purchase they heard rumours that Podravka's management were buying the shares, adding that they had suspected before that the management were connected with the purchase of shares through the Varazdin-based firm Fima.