Željko Markota, the director of Moj dvor građenje, sent a response to the text titled ‘HPB is selling land intended for the most ambitious residential project‘ published on November 15 on the Lider web portal and Facebook profile. He states that the title, text, and tags contain inaccurate statements and information as well as misinterpretations.
The correction is submitted in accordance with Article 40 of the Media Act to rectify the inaccurate statements and information and to present the facts and circumstances that refute and significantly supplement the published information.
1. Title and subject of sale
The title stating that ‘HPB is selling land’ is inaccurate. HPB is not selling land but has published a call for expressions of interest for the purchase of a bank receivable. The land is exclusively owned by Moj dvor građenje d.o.o. Equating the sale of someone else’s real estate with the sale of receivables misleads readers about the subject of the sale and ownership, causing damage to the sole owner of the property.
2. Area of land and amount of receivable
It is incorrect that the receivable of €10.73 million is secured by a lien on land measuring 24,376.7 m². The land on which HPB’s receivable is secured is significantly smaller, and the amount of the receivable is disputed because it is a claim that HPB unilaterally declared due, contrary to the Agreement, so the interest calculated on such a ‘due’ amount is legally and economically unfounded.
3. Investor and owner of the project
It is incorrect that the investor of the project is ‘entrepreneur Željko Markota’. The investor of the project and the sole owner of the land on which the project was to be built is exclusively Moj dvor građenje d.o.o. from Zagreb.
4. Causes of ‘financial and legal problems’
It is incorrect that Markota took a loan of 50 million kuna and that the ‘financial crisis’ is the main cause of the project’s problems. The only loan for construction is the loan from HPB of 30 million kuna granted to Moj dvor građenje d.o.o., whereby HPB contractually committed to project finance the construction within a total framework of 50 million kuna and with loan repayment from the sale of apartments. In the midst of the so-called ‘ATM affair’, the new management of HPB, despite its contractual obligation, ceased to finance the construction, causing the work to be halted. Then, the management of HPB, led by Čedo Maletić, unilaterally terminated the Loan Agreement and ‘declared’ the entire debt due, although there are neither contractual nor legal grounds for this. By such actions, HPB violates the fundamental principles of the Obligations Act (good faith and honesty, duty to cooperate, duty to fulfill obligations, and refraining from hindering the fulfillment of the other party’s obligations) and causes significant damage to the investor, but also to itself, as it prevents the realization of the project, thereby making it impossible for the loan to be repaid in the agreed manner — by completing the project and selling the apartments — from which the income should and could have been duly returned.
Who sued HPB and what was the subject of the dispute
It is incorrect that ‘Markota sued HPB for damages’ due to the unpaid amount and changes in loan conditions. The lawsuit against HPB was filed by Moj dvor građenje d.o.o. The subject of the dispute was compensation for damages due to the unlawful termination of the Loan Agreement and the cessation of financing for the construction of the project, not the alleged unpaid amount and changes in loan conditions. Such a substitution of thesis distorts the nature of the dispute.
6. Provisions of 89.1 million kuna
When mentioning HPB’s provisions due to the subject dispute, it is important to provide full context: HPB formed provisions of 89.1 million kuna only at the beginning of 2020, and not on its own initiative, but based on a request from the Croatian National Bank, which was publicly announced. However, the obligation to reserve existed much earlier: as early as 2016, a first-instance judgment ordered HPB to pay Moj dvor građenje d.o.o. 80.3 million kuna in damages. Instead of fulfilling this obligation at the latest by then and reflecting the full risk of the dispute in its financial statements, HPB delayed reserving for years, creating the impression in its balance sheets of a more favorable risk profile than the actual one, until the CNB requested a correction.
7. Judgment of the High Commercial Court
It is incorrect that the High Commercial Court ‘ruled that HPB is not responsible for the interruption of the project’. In the repeated proceedings, the High Commercial Court amended the first-instance judgment that ordered HPB to pay damages, rejecting the claim solely due to the acceptance of the statute of limitations objection, which HPB raised for the first time only after six years of litigation (VTS Pž-3799/2019), and simultaneously rewarded it by awarding approximately 1.3 million kuna for litigation costs. Thus, the court did not determine HPB’s ‘non-responsibility’ for the interruption of the project, but rejected the lawsuit on procedural grounds (alleged statute of limitations). The court, in the same composition, confirmed and further strengthened the factual findings regarding HPB’s responsibility for damages in an earlier decision in the same case. The dramatic turnaround you mention occurred, but for completely different reasons than those suggested by your text.
Moj dvor građenje d.o.o. is a small entrepreneur that has been conducting a series of legal proceedings against a large bank in majority state ownership for years to protect its rights and preserve ownership of the property in question, and we expect that an eminent business media outlet like Lider, which we have followed since its inception, reports on this topic accurately and ethically.
In accordance with the Media Act, we demand:
that this correction and response be published in full, without changes or comments, in the same place and to the same extent and reach as the disputed article (the initial position of the ‘business and politics’ section on the website and the corresponding post on Lider’s Facebook page), and that the correction be clearly linked to the original article with a visible link.
