D Sped Considers Leaving Croatia: Dispute with the Ministry of the Interior Threatens Business

The long-distance transport company D Sped, according to what has been said to Lider, is at a crossroads. Should it continue operations in Croatia or will its owner Mario Gojak shut it down and establish a new one abroad? Last year, it achieved strong growth of 40.8 million euros in revenue (an increase of 189.2 percent compared to 2024), and as things stand now, it will finish this year with a quarter, and perhaps even half, less.

We reached out to Gojak, but he politely declined, stating that he is currently involved in a court dispute at the High Administrative Court against the Ministry of the Interior (having lost at the first-instance court), which denied him 49 applications for the employment of foreigners.

– I could say a lot, but I really can’t because there is an ongoing court procedure in which we are trying to prove that the Ministry of the Interior is wrong. Once everything is over, I will open up – Gojak stated.

Negative Opinion from the Employment Service

He did not even want to confirm or deny the information from our interlocutors from the Karlovac area who told us that he is considering the option of shutting down the company and registering it in another country. The denied resolutions are based on opinions from the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ), which believes that D Sped does not meet the conditions for issuing work permits for foreigners.

Our sources close to Gojak claim that the HZZ cited as reasons for the negative opinion that the company did not have the mandatory minimum monthly income of ten thousand euros (even though its revenue has been drastically increasing in multi-million amounts year after year) and that it is not engaged in registered activities in Croatia. It also mentions tax debt as one of the reasons, as well as the unreliability of the documentation of potential workers and the company.

However, as we can see from Business Croatia, there is no question that the company generates less than ten thousand euros in monthly revenue, is engaged in registered activities (it has 155 trucks) even though it primarily earns revenue from jobs abroad. This was one of the arguments for the HZZ to conclude that the company is not engaged in registered activities in Croatia, even though the revenue is deposited in accounts opened in our country’s banks.

The Administrative Court in Rijeka even sided with the HZZ (dismissed the lawsuit of D Sped) regarding the court procedure related to the non-issuance of a permit for one foreigner who wants to work in Gojak’s company, concluding that it indeed generates revenue abroad, and therefore does not perform registered activities in Croatia?!

Although we do not want to question the Court’s decision, it is a bit strange that a company registered in Croatia with accounts in Croatia does not perform registered activities in that same Croatia just because it is an exporter. As it can be heard, it seems that the High Administrative Court could overturn that ruling, but let’s wait a little longer.

Questionable Tax Debt

It is questionable whether there is also tax debt. Namely, the Tax Administration told us that they cannot speak about a specific company when it comes to tax supervision and potential measures for a tax offender, but when it comes to tax debt, ‘the General Tax Law stipulates that the obligation to maintain tax secrecy is not violated if the Ministry of Finance, the Tax Administration, without the consent of the taxpayer’, publishes on its website how much is owed. Legal entities whose debt exceeds 39,816.84 euros are included in the list. The last list was published at the end of October last year, and D Sped is not on it, which theoretically means it can only have a debt lower than the stated amount.

However, Gojak did give statements to Jutarnji list in May this year (he emphasizes that his lawyer told him he should not have done that while the court procedure is ongoing) when he stated that his workers receive a net salary between three and five thousand euros. However, data from publicly available sources tell a different story, which we will address in the second part of the text.

Our sources claim that he even pays them a privileged work experience, although he is not obliged to. We asked artificial intelligence, and it is indeed legally possible, but Gojak did not mention this to us. He previously claimed that he does not owe the state a cent, meaning he pays his obligations on time. If that is true, then he does not have any debt to the state lower than the minimum for publication on the Tax Administration’s website.

Strange HZZ Stance

Regarding the unreliability of the documentation, our sources are surprised by the HZZ’s stance as it concerns applications for the employment of foreigners who are already working in Croatia. In the aforementioned statement, Gojak accuses employment agencies (not naming them) that allegedly extorted him. ‘At first, we imported labor through agencies, like everyone else, we were forced to. Those agencies do not aim for that worker to stay employed, but to circulate, while they mediate. In a phone conversation, a woman at the HZZ named the agency through which we should import workers, and we would get visas without problems.

Then we call that recommended agency, which asks us for 400 euros, but not for the worker, just for – the phone call! If during that conversation you decide on a worker and sign a contract, you must pay the agency another 4500 euros. For one person and without any guarantees. So, I pay them 45 thousand euros for ten drivers who might run away after two months, and some I never even meet because they escape at the airport. Besides, is it normal for an HZZ official to refer me to a specific private agency?’ Gojak stated in May to Jutarnji list.

The owner of this long-distance company decided to bypass agencies, which is completely legitimate, to go cheaper (not paying a commission), so he offered jobs to foreigners who already work in Croatia. As our sources explain, he ‘fell’ here because the HZZ, with its institute ‘Opinions’, made his life difficult, which is why the Ministry of the Interior began to reject his applications for foreigners. However, it is interesting that applications were also denied for those foreigners who have been legally working in Croatia for several years, and the explanation cites the unreliability of their documentation (as well as the company’s).

– How is it possible that these foreigners could previously obtain all the papers if their documentation is unreliable? – asks one of the sources.

Silence of Institutions

Furthermore, when we talk about the unreliability of the company’s documentation, if everything mentioned is true (not achieving minimum monthly income, not performing registered activities, tax debt), one must ask how it is possible that D Sped always receives a positive resolution from the Ministry of the Interior for the extension of permits for those foreigners who already work in that company!

We requested a comment from the HZZ on the claims of our sources and on Gojak’s previous statements, but we did not receive a response by the time of publication. Nor from the Ministry of the Interior, which we asked whether it is always obliged to consider the HZZ’s Opinion or whether it does not have to consider it. We also asked the following: ‘How is it possible that for the same company the Ministry of the Interior approves permits for those foreign workers who are already employed in it, but does not approve for new foreign workers? Isn’t it logical, given the reasons for the negative opinion, to issue a ban to D Sped for those workers who are already employed by Gojak?’

We would say that silence also speaks, but despite that, we will stop here hoping that the truth will come out, whatever it may be. However, it seems that Gojak is losing patience because, according to sources, he is preparing the ground for leaving Croatia. He was not only driven by a significant decline in this year’s revenue after years of substantial growth but also by a decrease in the number of employees. Namely, in 2024 he had 219, last year, when his applications for the employment of foreigners were denied in November, that number fell to less than 200, and currently, there are about 150.

To be fair, one must ask why a driver who receives up to five thousand euros net salary leaves the company, which forces us to ‘pull the brake’ and not take Gojak’s side until the truth is established. In the aforementioned text in Jutarnji, the HZZ responded that since 2021, Gojak ‘has received a positive opinion for 860 workers, but that in November last year he had only 163 foreign workers employed, which indicates a high turnover of workers and raises doubts about the justification of granting positive opinions for the residence and work of foreign workers he employs.’

High Worker Turnover

So, if what is stated is true, the company has a high turnover despite good salaries (even mentioning privileged work experience) and one must ask why that is the case. Therefore, it is also good to analyze the company’s operations in previous years. Thus, the company jumped from 2.5 million euros in 2021 to a fantastic 40.8 million euros. And yes, when we asked Gojak to at least tell us how he managed that, he simply said that he significantly increased the number of contracts in recent years, which brought the company significantly higher revenue.

Lider’s financial analyst Nikola Nikšić, owner of Konter, says that in the four-year period from 2022 to 2025, the total revenues of the company grew on average by 73.6 percent per year, and in 2025 (40.8 million euros) they were higher by 26.7 million or even 189.2 percent compared to the previous year. Total expenses in the same period grew even faster, averaging 74.6 percent per year, and in 2025 compared to 2024 by 191.5 percent, or by 2.3 percentage points more than total revenues. As a result, the gross profit margin, which was 1.5 percent in 2024, was further halved to 0.7 percent in 2025.

There is a noticeable decline in the share of personnel costs in revenues, which is interesting considering that in May Gojak claimed, and our sources, that net salaries range between three and five thousand euros. This share in business revenues fell to just 6.8 percent (it was 17.1 percent in 2024), with a slight decrease in the average number of employees from 218 (2024) to 199 (2025). As a result, the operating (EBIT) margin fell from 1.5 percent (2024) to 0.7 percent (2025), and the EBITDA margin from 1.6 percent to 0.8 percent. In comparison, the average EBIT in the road freight transport sector in 2025 was 5.2 percent, and EBITDA 12.5 percent.

– The company thus achieves significantly lower profitability than the industry average despite a high ranking in terms of revenue – notes Nikšić.

Increase in External Financing

Unlike the period from 2021 to 2024, when the company operated with a moderate share of external financing (debt ratio of 64 to 67.4 percent), last year external financing suddenly rose to 89 percent of liabilities (financing from own sources fell to 11 percent). Short-term liabilities increased from 934.6 thousand euros (2024) to 4.98 million euros (2025), which is 5.3 times more, and for the first time, short-term liabilities to banks appeared, amounting to 492 thousand euros.

It is difficult to assess what this is about, perhaps financing leasing for trucks, but as our sources told us, Gojak returned some trucks because there is no one to drive them. Two years ago he had, allegedly in 2019, and today he has 155. Whatever it is, compared to the average debt ratio in the road freight transport sector in 2025, which was 59.6 percent (financing from own sources 40.4 percent), it is clear that D Sped is significantly more indebted than the industry average. As a consequence of the above, the current liquidity ratio (current assets/current liabilities) fell below one and at the end of last year was 0.98. The industry average was 1.37, the same as the previous year, but at that time Gojak’s company had such a ratio. Looking at that ratio, we see that short-term liabilities exceed current assets. Net working capital fell from 264.9 thousand euros (2024) to 78.6 thousand euros (2025), and its share in assets from 18.1 percent to just 1.3 percent.

Caution is Needed

Nikšić usually emphasizes when a company is a ‘sweetheart’ or assigns it some other epithet, but this time he refrained from commenting. The fact is that the Ministry of the Interior’s refusal to issue work permits for foreigners in D Sped is based on very strange HZZ stances, as is the fact that due to such a situation, the company’s operations may be disrupted, and it is possible that it will ultimately be so.

However, some indicators tell us that profitability already declined last year despite strong revenue growth, so, alongside Gojak’s desire to prove his claims that he has been treated unfairly in issuing permits for foreigners, caution is needed in concluding the story: the company is successful, has its clients abroad, but to potentially attract investors, it must resolve the issues arising in Croatia.