The Ostrava District Court dismissed ARC equity services, headed by billionaire Pavol Krúpa, Residomo and RPG Instrustries in the sale of former OKD flats.
The court dismissed the claim for damages, which, according to the plaintiff, was supposed to arise to the tenants by not having the possibility to purchase the flats of the existing tenants prior to the sale of the housing stock from OKD’s former property.
It follows from the decision of the Judge of the District Court in Ostrava, Pavlína Vrkočová, dated April 16, the editorial office of WatchdogsPes.org has available.
The claimant company has to pay
Residomo is the current owner of former OKD flats, RPG Industries Limited is the legal successor of Karbon Invest, which acquired OKD in 2004. Arca filed a lawsuit against them in August 2016.
In the particular dispute, there was one flat and damages (including non-material damage) totaling CZK 1,056,609.
ARC equity was not a tenant of the flat, but took over the receivable of the tenant of one of the Ostrava flats, paying 50% of the recovered amount in case of success.
“The company was sued in the matter of compensation for damage incurred by tenants of the OKD housing stock by not granting tenants the right to purchase these flats under preferential conditions CZK 40,000 per dwelling stipulated in the 2004 privatization agreement,” iDnes server quoted last February ARC spokesman Barbora Hanakova.
Now it is ARC equity who has lost in the dispute and has to pay the costs of CZK 89,990. In the meantime, the company was renamed Serbina Consulting as; Pavol Krúpa left the company in April 2017, almost two years before the end of the lawsuit.
“Serbina Consulting will continue to defend the interests of tenants and will file an appeal after delivery of a written copy of the judgment,” the company responded to HlídacíPes.org.
It added that, in its view, the court had ‘serious procedural irregularities’, in particular ‘in relation to the absence of any court decision to admit or refuse to amend and extend the action’.
In response, she also pointed out that the judge herself was biased in the dispute; objection of bias (with regard to the fact that the judge herself was a tenant of one of the former flats of OKD) was also filed by RPG. However, the superior court refused to exclude it from the decision on this matter.
However, the judge decided in favor of RPG and Residomo. In the statement of reasons, it argues, inter alia, that under the contract the right to purchase a flat at a discounted price should arise only if individual housing units were sold. But that didn’t happen.
Sales RPG Round Hill Capital’s apartments in 2015 were the sales of entire companies with a portfolio of apartment buildings.
Pavol Krúpa, or more precisely the companies in which he worked, filed a number of further actions against Zdeněk Bakala in connection with the failure of OKD’s mining company. Even these Krúpa activities are considered to be one of the reasons why the Slovak billionaire won the Medal of Merit from President Miloš Zeman last year.
On the contrary, Bakala also filed a suit against Krúpa. In the US courts, he sues him for blackmail.
This article originally appeared on HlidaciPes and has been translated to english.