Baltic, Estonia, Legislation, Lithuania, Markets and Companies, Taxation

"In this case, the Vilnius Regional Tax Inspectorate cooperates with all tax-payers, all residents of Lithuania who may have information relevant to the investigation conducted by the Estonian tax authority," told Darius Buta, spokesman for the Lithuanian State Tax Inspectorate."Neither the State Tax Inspectorate nor the Vilnius Regional Tax Inspectorate can provide more information at this stage," he added.

Rainer Laurits, spokesman for the Estonian Tax and Customs Board, told  that the authority was not commenting on ongoing tax probes.

VP Group's shareholders are asked to provide information related to the sale of Franmax, a Lithuanian company that owns the Maxima franchise. Marcinkevicius has brought a lawsuit against that company in Estonian courts.

Estonia's Franmax OU has sold Lithuania's Franmax UAB to Luxembourg-registered Carson for around 40 mln euros. Marcinkevicius claims that the price was well below the company's value of 400 mln euros, which enabled Franmax OU to avoid paying some 70 mln euros in taxes.

According to a copy of the minutes of the meeting at the Vilnius tax authority, which LETA/BNS received from Marcinkevicius' representatives, he was asked whether he was one of the ultimate owners of Franmax and Carson in June 2015, how many shares he held and who other shareholders were.

Olga Petroseviciene, a lawyer for Nerijus Numavicius, the VP Group's majority shareholder, said that her client, who currently lives in Britain, had not been summoned to the Lithuanian tax authority. The lawyer also said that, to her knowledge, Numavicius had not received a summons to provide information to the British tax authorities.

Other shareholders of the VP Group are Vladas Numavicius, Ignas Staskevicius, Mindaugas Marcinkevicius, Mindaugas Bagdonavicius and Gintaras Marcinkevicius.