Was Unipetrol's privatisation accompanied by corruption?

20-Dec-05

The previous government of Stanislav Gross sold 63% of Unipetrol shares for 13.05 billion crowns to the Polish PKN Orlen company last year. Speculations are rife that Unipetrol's privatisation which was won by the Polish company PKN Orlen was accompanied by corruption. This has come to light as Martin Riman, a representative of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) in the Chamber of Deputies commission, investigating the privatisation of the petrochemical holding Unipetrol, questioned the government decision which eliminated three of the six bidders in the tender in 2004. The government had eliminated three bidders in 2004, although the privatisation commission had recommended to the cabinet that it should leave all the firms to seek the deal. Riman said that it was not clear whether there was really interest in eliminating some bidders. PKN Orlen, KazMunaiGaz, the Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, the British-Dutch Royal Dutch/Shell group, the Slovak Penta, the German branch of the Russian oil company Tatneft and the Canadian Norex Petroleum participated in the tender. Along with PKN Orlen, MOL and Royal Dutch/Shell were short- listed, but both companies withdrew their bids in the end.