Banks, Financial Services, Investments, Latvia, Legislation

International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Thursday, 28.03.2024, 12:41

Kutris: if Citadele had been sold to another candidate, difference in price wasn’t that significant

BC, Riga, 24.07.2015.Print version
Had there been more bidders for the joint-stock company Citadele banka (Citadele), competition would have been tougher, but it does not necessarily mean that the price for the bank would have been much higher, as Gunars Kutris (For Latvia From the Heart), head of the Saeima Parliamentary Investigation Commission, said in an interview with Latvian State Television, writes LETA.

BC's photo.

He said that the price could have been higher if other candidates were not excluded from the sale process. However, there is no way of being absolutely certain of this now.

 

The Parliamentary Investigation Commission has turned to the Prosecutor General's Office requesting a probe into the Citadele sale process. The prosecutor's office said it would request all the necessary information from the respective institutions to launch the probe.

 

Kutris previously declined to reveal specific facts, however, according to newspaper "Diena", the issue concerns four episodes, three of which are connected to Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma (Unity).

 

Two episodes deal with the closed government meeting that took place on July 29, 2014. During this meeting, the ministers decided to pick just one investor from a list of potential buyers – Ripplewood, eliminating the possibility of potentially raising the bank's price.

 

The first episode, which is currently under criminal investigation, concerns the State Chancellery's officials why may have manipulated with the audio recording of the said government's July 29 meeting in order to conceal significant information about the bank's sale process.

 

The second episode concerns unlawful alterations of the meeting's minutes.

 

The suspicions are due to a possible conflict of interest on the prime minister's part, taking into account that her son Girts Straujums works in a top-level position at Norvik banka, which was one of the potential buyers of Citadele.






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