MOL-INA conflict: Hernadi contests arrest warrant at Croatian Constitutional Court

Budapest, January 20 (MTI) – The chief of Hungarian oil group MOL has turned to Croatia’s top court to appeal against an arrest warrant issued against him, Magyar Nemzet daily said on Monday.

Zsolt Hernadi, MOL’s chairman and chief executive, complained in his appeal to the constitutional court about a lower court ruling that he may only contest the warrant once he is in custody. This, he claimed, is a violation of his constitutional rights.

The warrant was issued last autumn after Hernadi declined to show up for a hearing called on suspicion he bribed former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to give MOL management rights in Croatian peer INA.

MOL said the Croatian authorities were acting “contrary to supra-national European law”, and noted that the Hungarian authorities had earlier dismissed the case.

Meanwhile, Croatia has filed an arbitration suit with the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in Geneva, asking it to declare null and void the 2009 amended agreement on management rights in INA and the main agreement on the gas business, Croatian news agency HINA said.

Croatia is also seeking compensation for damages caused by the agreements, HINA said.

The agreements were signed with Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, which holds a little less than 50 percent of INA’s shares. The state of Croatia owns about 45 percent.

Photo: nemzeti.net

Source: http://hungarymatters.hu/