Entrepreneur Dragan Jurilj: The Dispute Arose When Muharrem Balat Entrusted Business Management to His Son

Muharrem Balat, a businessman whose holding invested in a geothermal power plant in Velika Cigleno, has passed away. According to received information, Balat died due to multiple organ failure while being treated in a private hospital in the Kuşadası district of Aydın. The news of Balat’s death, who could not be saved despite all the doctors’ efforts, came on Tuesday, June 27, in the afternoon.

Balat developed the geothermal power plant in Croatia with entrepreneur Dragan Jurilj, but due to disagreements among co-owners, several disputes were initiated at the Commercial Court between the holders of business shares in the former Geoen regarding ownership and management rights. The company Geon has since ceased to exist, and ownership, obligations, and rights over Velika Cigleno have been transferred to Jurilj’s company, Geo Power Energy Development.

– Mr. Muharrem Balat was a successful and respected businessman. Here, I take the opportunity to express my sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Muharrem Balat. In partnership with Mr. Balat, I built the first Croatian and the largest ORC geothermal power plant in Europe. Our partnership resulted in the construction of the Geothermal Power Plant ‘Velika 1’, which is the flagship of the geothermal sector in Croatia and Europe. Thus, Mr. Muharrem Balat left a significant mark in the energy sector of the Republic of Croatia.

Unfortunately, our mutual disputes arose when Mr. Muharrem Balat, due to illness, ceased to actively manage the business and entrusted the management to his son. Mr. Muharrem Balat’s son, Orkun Balat, I must unfortunately conclude, did not follow in his father’s footsteps. Instead of developing new partnership projects, he began to undertake various unlawful actions, abuse my trust, and undermine our partnership relations. Due to these unlawful actions taken by Orkun Balat, we filed several criminal complaints and initiated several legal proceedings that resulted in the loss of his ownership rights in the geothermal power plant – Jurilj commented for Lider.