Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusic said in Zagreb on Thursday she expected that a suspension would be requested at a hearing before the Zagreb Country Court on Friday, in the Privredna Banka lawsuit against the now defunct Ljubljanska Banka (LB) for transferred savings of Croatian clients.
Pusic said the Croatian side, in accordance with the law, had done everything to have the proceedings suspended and that the Slovenian side was holding talks today with representatives of the old and the new Ljubljanska Banka, adding that she expected both sides to request that the proceedings be suspended at the hearing on Friday.
Pusic refuted interpretations that holding a hearing on Friday in the lawsuit launched by Croatian banks against the Slovenian bank meant that the agreement to suspend the lawsuits was abandoned.
"There are no new lawsuits. These suits are old and the hearing has been scheduled a long time ago," Pusic said.
Croatian lawyers received clear instructions from the Finance Ministry regarding the suspension of the case against Ljubljanska Banka before the Croatian court and Croatia's submission regarding this issue is ready, a source from the Croatian government told the media on Thursday.
The hearing in the suit which Privredna Banka launched against Ljubljanska Banka scheduled for Friday, has been scheduled last year, the same source said.
On 11 March, the prime ministers of Croatia and Slovenia, Zoran Milanovic and Janez Jansa, signed a Memorandum of Agreement between the two governments to resolve the Ljubljanska Banka issue within negotiations on succession to the former Yugoslavia, while the Slovenian parliament would immediately initiate ratification of Croatia's European Union accession treaty.
The document says that efforts will be made to find a comprehensive solution as soon as possible to the issue of Yugoslav-era foreign-currency deposits of Croatian clients with the Zagreb office of the now defunct Slovenian bank. Active negotiations to that effect will continue at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel in line with the succession treaty.
Under the memorandum, which is written in English, the Croatian government will ensure that the lawsuits filed by Croatian banks are put on hold and no new legal or other proceedings are taken with regard to the issue of transferred foreign-currency savings deposits, while Slovenia undertakes to initiate a procedure in its parliament to ratify Croatia's EU accession treaty.
