Mihailović: SDT will be declared incompetent, Vukčević: If you were selling private property, would you have rejected a higher offer?

The Special State Prosecutor's Office will be declared incompetent in the case of the sale of Barska Plovidba's assets and that the investigation will be taken over by the lower prosecutor's office, and we will have a decision on that soon, said Barska Plovidba's director Boris Mihailović yesterday at a hearing before the parliamentary Anti-Corruption Committee.

The criminal complaint against Mihailović was filed with the SDT by the company "Admiral Holding", which made the highest bid for the purchase of the former administrative building of 1,95 million euros, but was rejected due to an alleged error in the notarial deed for the power of attorney of its employee who inspected the building. The bid of "Roaming Montenegro", which was 200 thousand euros lower, was accepted 25 days after the opening of the bids, when the commission had no objections to the bid and documentation of "Admiral Holding".

Mihailović did not explain how he knew what the SDT would do.

The Anti-Corruption Committee organized the session after Admiral Holding submitted that there were suspicions of corrupt practices in connection with the sale of the former office building of this majority state-owned company and that damage had been caused to the state-owned company.

The legal representative of "Admiral Holding", Miloš Vukčević, said that according to the advertisement for the sale of the administrative building, the only condition was a higher price, and that everything else was a construction of additional conditions in order to reject the highest bidder. He said that the inspection of the building took place on June 20th and that the representative of "Admiral Holding" signed a statement form about that inspection, as well as that the deadline for submitting the documentation was June 27th and that the notarial record of his power of attorney was submitted on June 26th.

Viewing the building was not a condition for participating in its purchase.

Vukčević said that the competent state authorities should determine why additional reasons were sought for 25 days to cancel the best bid, which caused damage to the state-owned company of 200 thousand euros, stating that this would not be the only damage to this state-owned company.

He said that "Admiral Holding" has initiated a dispute before the Commercial Court and that it will certainly win, that Barska plovidba will have to return the money to the selected bidder with interest and pay significant costs of the court proceedings and compensation.

Mihailović stated that when submitting the bids, the commission did not explicitly state that the bids were correct, and that the commission asked him to hire a private lawyer to review the submitted bids.

He stated that the retired Admiral Holding representative did not have the company's power of attorney when he inspected the building on June 20, but rather submitted it on June 26, and that therefore the bidder's documentation was not true. He agreed that the commission took too long to decide, and that this was due to the illness of a family member of one of the members.

Mihailović said that the commission, not him, declared the Admiral Holding offer invalid on July 17, and that after consultations with the Board of Directors and government representatives, he signed a sales contract with Roaming Montenegro. He stated that at that moment he could have canceled the advertisement or accepted another offer, and that, given that the deadline for paying the installment to the Chinese Exim Bank was then expiring, he decided to accept the lower offer.

Admiral Holding previously pointed out that it was symptomatic that the delay in selecting the bid lasted until the deadline for paying the installment to the Chinese bank approached.

Vukčević said that the interpretation of "Barska Plovidba" has no legal or logical basis, citing the example of whether someone selling private property would reject an offer higher than 200 thousand euros, citing some procedural reason that was not even a condition of participation.

Committee President Jefto Eraković said that he would propose a conclusion - a call to the authorities to investigate this case, and that if necessary, the committee would reconsider this case.