Namen: EuroGas: We Lost Talc Quarry Due to ANO Bribe-seeking
Bratislava, July 3 (TASR) - U.S. company EuroGas claims that it was deprived of its licence for operating a talc quarry at Gemerska Poloma (Kosice region) due to a corruption plot, Plus 7 Dni weekly magazine reported in its latest issue on Thursday. According to the magazine, EuroGas claims that it has evidence to prove this. Plus 7 Dni reported that there is a witness from Germany who has testified before a public notary that representatives of the ANO political party in 2004 suggested that he should pay €5 million in exchange for a talc-extraction licence that they were planning to take away from EuroGas. This is one of the reasons why the American company filed an official complaint against Slovakia at the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on June 25. EuroGas put in a claim for compensation to the tune of $3.2 billion (€2.3 billion) for the profits that the company would have enjoyed had the mining of talc began according to the original timetable in 2007. Plus 7 Dni wrote in the article that it has at its disposal minutes from the testimony of then representative of a company called Mondo Minerals in which the representative confirmed that prior to a planned meeting with erstwhile economy minister Pavol Rusko two men proposed to him that the former's company could obtain the licence for the quarry in exchange for paying €5 million to Rusko's ANO party in December 2004. According to the magazine, the representative declined the offer, subsequently reporting the case to his superiors. The scheduled meeting with Rusko ended without a deal. Furthermore, the magazine reported that the two aforementioned officials were senior representative of a mining office Dusan Cellar and former EuroGas aide Peter Corej. They deny the claims. Plus 7 Dni added that after the licence was taken away the quarry was taken over by a company owned by Corej's wife. Meanwhile, the Slovak Supreme Court has decided twice that the seizure of the licence from EuroGas was against the law. According to information brought earlier by Austria's Die Presse, the threat of a lawsuit at the ICSID arbitration tribunal drove Slovakia to show its willingness to reach a compromise vis-a-vis the case. Finance Ministry State Secretary Peter Pellegrini was reported to have gone to Vienna in April for a secret meeting with representatives of EuroGas. No agreement was reached, however. EuroGas has indicated its plans to take legal action against Slovakia since 2010. At first, EuroGas demanded compensation of €500 million in 2011. One year later a company called EuroGas Inc. registered in the U.S.A. also began claiming compensation. The overall amount has climbed to $1.65 billion, therefore. EuroGas asserted that its rights related to a trade agreement between the erstwhile Czechoslovakia and the U.S.A. from 1991 have been viol ated. The Slovak Finance Ministry last year denied that any agreement had been broken. The talc deposit in Gemerska Poloma was discovered accidentally during a search for tin in 1985. The talc from the deposit has high levels of purity, with experts viewing it as one of the most important in the world. The largest producer of talc world-wide is China, but significant deposits are also located in the U.S.A., Brazil and India, while Finland is a significant producer in Europe. In view of the wide-ranging options for the industrial use of talc, mainly in the pharmaceutical, chemicals, cosmetics and paper industries, market demand for this raw material is rising steadily. |