Banks, Financial Services, Latvia, Legislation, Real Estate

Tatjana Kargina and her mother, Elvira Inusova, were both found guilty, and the court issued fines for both.

As LETA was informed by Supreme Court Press Secretary Baiba Kataja, Kargina was issued a fine worth 80 minimum wages or LVL 16,000, and money in her former Parex banka bank account was confiscated.

Meanwhile, Inusova was hit with an LVL 8,000 fine, and money from her bank account was confiscated as well.

As reported, back in 2008, the Prosecutor General's Office officially brought charges against one of Latvia's wealthiest women in a criminal case on attempts to illegally acquire the company Imperius, worth several million lats.

Also indicted in the case was Kargina's mother.

Kargina and Inusova were accused of large-scale fraud via illegitimately increasing Imperius’s share capital in order to acquire controlling interest in the company.

Kargina's former business partner, Andrejs Kalejs, who had the status of claimant, estimates that his losses have reached approximately EUR 2 million because, due to actions from the two women, not only the company sustained losses but Kalejs also had to spend much money and time on litigation.

As the newspaper Neatkariga reported in 2008, Kalejs was planning to buy a valuable land plot near Riga in 2005, but was short of funds. He and Kargina established Imperius, where Kalejs and Kargina's mother became shareholders with a 50% interest each. The company's board, on the other hand, included Kalejs and Kargina.

At end-2006, another company, SPT, made an EUR 4.3 million takeover bid for the company.

Both co-owners would receive 50 percent of the amount, however, to gain more than 50%, Kargina and Inusova organized an illegitimate Imperius shareholders meeting in order to raise the company's share capital. Kalejs was not informed that the company's share capital had been increased and he was only left 5% interest in the company, and that he had been dismissed as the company's board chairman. Kalejs only found out after the Registry of Enterprises had already registered these changes in Imperius.

Kalejs turned to Riga Vidzeme District Court, and it later ruled that the increase in Imperius share capital was illegal.