Sberbank ‘threw down the gauntlet’: Agrokor is an unprecedented fraud

Sberbank will seek repayment of debt from Agrokor in court, announced Sberbank’s CEO Herman Gref, evaluating Agrokor’s case as an unprecedented fraud, reported the Tass agency and other Russian media.

Sberbank plans to prosecute the auditor who confirmed Agrokor’s falsified business reports hiding liabilities greater than one billion dollars, Gref told reporters.

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“As for the Croatian case, nothing is changing. We have a legal strategy and we do not think it is short-term. Our reservations (for Agrokor’s debt) are one hundred percent, so we are ready for a long-term litigation process and we will bring to justice all individuals who committed obvious fraud there,” Gref said.

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He added that a criminal complaint has already been filed against the owner and management of Agrokor and that he hopes to “hold accountable the auditing firm that confirmed the false reporting.”

He stated that several legal steps and documents are necessary for this, which takes some time, and that the legal steps already taken, as well as those that will follow, testify that Sberbank will deal with the Agrokor case in detail.

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“We have significant claims, both regarding the scheme implemented by the Croatian government and against the managers and auditors of the company itself. Through the court, we will recover our money, but it may take time,” Gref said.

End of financing

According to him, Sberbank does not intend to finance Agrokor anymore.

“The situation is extremely non-transparent for us, which we have emphasized several times to the Croatian government. It is strange that the Croatian government supports the absence of transparency. In the absence of transparency, when we do not understand how much money is needed for the company and what the quality of the management staff is, when we do not understand how effectively this money is spent, we do not want to participate in such processes,” added the head of Sberbank.

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Gref stated that Sberbank is facing such a large fraud for the first time in the Agrokor case.

“We will achieve our goal. The case is unprecedented. We have such a fraud, unprecedented, when the management hides the real state, fakes profits, and hides behind an imbalance of liabilities greater than one billion dollars. This is the first such case we have encountered, but I still believe we will reach our goal,” Gref said, as reported by Russian media.

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They remind that Agrokor’s debt to Sberbank is 1.1 billion euros, arising from several loans, and that in August, Sberbank initiated criminal proceedings in Croatia against the founder and majority shareholder of Agrokor, Ivica Todorić.