Ramljak: I am not surprised by the decision of the Belgrade court regarding the rejection of lex Agrokor

Extraordinary commissioner for Agrokor Ante Ramljak said on Thursday after a meeting in the Government that he was not surprised by the decision of the court in Belgrade which rejected the request for companies from the Agrokor group operating in Serbia to come under the jurisdiction of the so-called lex Agrokor.

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Ramljak stated in response to a journalist’s question that Serbia is still not a member of the European Union, so ‘their decisions are their decisions’. He believes that such a decision will not encourage other countries to do the same.

The court in Belgrade rejected the request of the temporary administrator of Agrokor for companies operating within the group in Serbia to come under the jurisdiction of lex Agrokor, Serbian media reported this morning.

When asked what this could mean for Agrokor’s business and its restructuring, considering that local creditors could be much harsher than those accepting lex Agrokor, Ramljak said he believes that all creditors, regardless of where Agrokor’s assets are located, will be satisfied from the total assets that Agrokor has, regardless of which country they are in.

– There will be no individual settlements, he asserted.

When asked by journalists whether this was discussed at the meeting in the Government, Ramljak said it was not, but that topics from the Creditor Council were discussed, in which there will be a decision today regarding the payment of old debts to suppliers.

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On Thursday afternoon, a session of the Temporary Creditor Council will be held, and Ramljak will hold a media briefing after the session, where he will, as announced, inform the media in detail about everything.

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The newspaper Politika, which confirmed the information at the Commercial Court, states that this decision is “just a continuation of the legal saga between the management of Agrokor and the Russian Sberbank, to which the group owes the most, and which has so far remained empty-handed”.

– With the application of ‘lex Agrokor’, there are no guarantees that they will get back more than one billion euros, which they lent to Todorić. Therefore, the Russians have tried to protect their rights in international and regional courts in recent months, Politika states.

The newspaper reminds that the commercial courts in Belgrade and Zrenjanin have issued temporary measures prohibiting the disposal of ownership, including a ban on the sale of companies operating in Serbia.

At the beginning of June, the courts issued temporary measures prohibiting the disposal and encumbrance of ownership shares of Agrokor’s companies in Frikom and Dijamant, as security for Sberbank’s claim of 100 million euros.

>>> Ramljak: In a few days, the payment of 132 million kuna debts to small suppliers begins

– Russian Sberbank has prevented the Croatian state from using these two Serbian companies as collateral when taking a new loan, as well as deciding on their potential sale… Sberbank has, on the other hand, ensured that the Croatian group will return part of the debt to these companies, Politika states.

The newspaper interprets ‘lex Agrokor’ as a law on systemically important companies that the Croatian Parliament adopted in April to save Agrokor of Ivica Todorić, effectively nationalizing his private property.

Agrokor owns Merkator in Serbia as well as the companies Dijamant, Frikom, MG Mivela, Kikindski mlin, and Nova sloga, with a total of about 11,000 employees.

In early April, the then Serbian Prime Minister, and now President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić announced that the Government and the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) would prepare a plan to ensure that money from companies connected to the Agrokor system does not flow out of Serbia.