Slovenia's anti-graft body finds no conflict of interest in sale of biogas plant by BAMC

Slovenia's Commission for the Prevention of Corruption said it approved the sale of a biogas plant in Dobrovnik by the Bank Assets Management Company (BAMC) to Hungary's Pannonia Bio as it found no violations of the country's anti-corruption rules, it said.

The Commission completed a preliminary investigation of the deal and found there is no conflict of interest, it said in a statement on Wednesday.

In November, the anti-graft commission said it will look into the deal, because together with the Dobrovnik plant, Pannonia Bio purchased a biogas plant in Vucja Vas from a company owned by the current director of BAMC, Franci Matoz.

The investigationfound no evidence of conflict, as the sale of the Dobrovnik plant was discussed by BAMC's six credit and investments boards between October 2020 and June 2021, before Matoz joined BAMC in July 2021, the Commission said.

The Commission explained that it cannot comment on the business decisions of BAMC and referred the matter to the Ministry of Finance, which is responsible for supervising BAMC, Slovenia's 'bad bank'.

According to Slovenian media reports, Matoz acquired the Vucja Vas plant for 2 million euro ($2.3 million) and sold it to Pannonia Bio for 4 million euro, whereas BAMC bought the Dobrovnik plant for 6 million euro and sold it to the Hungarian company for 2 million euro.

($ = 0.88303 euro)

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