The board of directors and the joint-stock company Luka Bar have completely distanced themselves from the dubious statements of the executive director Zarija Franović published on National Day, July 13 this year, which led to the minority shareholders from the Montenegrin Association of Small Shareholders (CAMA) reporting him to the capital market regulator and accusing him of stock market manipulation.
The Commission for the Capital Market launched an investigation regarding that report, and CAMA doubts Franović's publicly announced information that Luka Bar made a profit of 2018 euros during the first six months of 600.000. CAMA also claims that "there are strong indications that, contrary to the prohibition from Article 138 of the Capital Market Law, he provided the public with misleading and incomplete information regarding the company's operations."
"Regarding the interview of the executive director, published in the holiday edition of the daily newspaper "Pobjeda" for July 13, the Board of Directors distances itself from it, as it had no prior knowledge of the information that the interview would be given, as well as in terms of its content", it is emphasized, among other things, in the answer of the Port Board to the Commission, signed by the secretary of the company Vesna Mihaljević, M.Sc.
Moreover, as further stated in the answer, the Board of Directors, with the aim of a synchronized, unified company appearance in the public, and transparency in information, made an appropriate conclusion on shortening the authority to inform the public of the executive management, without the prior consent of the Board of Directors.
"The same, however, was not respected by the executive management," the response further noted.
The management of the Port of Bar could not respond to the Commission's inquiries regarding the financial statements and the six-month operations of the bar company, but announced that they would inform it later.
At the session held on Friday, the board of directors did not accept the six-month report, "because the result was not achieved in accordance with the business plan, and due to the expressed doubts about the credibility of the given financial statements, an extraordinary audit of the business for the first six months of 2018 will be carried out".
Responding to CAMA's accusations, Franović previously announced that "in all public addresses, he presents only and exclusively facts, true and easily verifiable."
He also violated the Board's restriction on making statements yesterday.
A false balance is a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in prison
According to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Montenegro, a false balance sheet is a criminal offense punishable by a prison sentence of three months to five years.
"Whoever, with the intention of obtaining any benefit for himself or another or causing any damage to another, creates a false balance sheet in a business company or other business entity that determines the profit or loss of that entity or that determines the share of each member of the company in the profit or loss, shall be punished with imprisonment from three months to five years", it is stated in the Criminal Code (Article 278).
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