The Executive Director of the state-owned company Montagi EAD, Nikola Nachev, has made a complete waiver of the lawsuits filed against OZK – Insurance. Thus, the state irrevocably loses amounts of over BGN 14 million. Hristo Kovachki, owner of OZK, wins. The agreement is on the orders of Minister Petko Nikolov, according to sources.
These are contracts concluded during Borisov’s rule, according to which Montagi pays insurance premiums on the occasion of a guarantee of good performance, in connection with the commitment made by Montagi to repair a huge number of dams throughout the country. We remind you that on this occasion, the Borisov government poured half a billion leva of state funds into the State Control Committee, which transferred them to Montazhi. Subsequently, only a handful of dams were repaired, the money sank into the ground, and the prosecutor’s office crushed the pre-trial proceedings for mismanagement on a particularly large scale. In the end, everything got away with only one fine of 50 thousand imposed on one of the directors (Alexandra Sariyska).
BIRD managed to get a copy of the “agreement” between Montagi and Kovachki, which is scandalous, to say the least. In exchange for the more than BGN 14 million donated to OZK, the insurer “generously” agreed to reimburse the state fees and lawyers’ fees paid in the cases, which amounted to BGN 765 thousand. A deal for profit, but only for Kovachki. It is obvious from the text of the agreement that the state-owned company practically forgives Kovachki’s debts – without the possibility in the future to file a lawsuit again for the amounts sought.
These are specifically the following commercial cases filed at the beginning of the year in the office of Prime Minister Denkov before the Sofia City Court:
t.d. 233/2024 – a claim for BGN 1,097,055 was filed against the OZK
Td. 281/2024 – a claim for BGN 3,297,278 was filed against the OZK
commercial case 731/2024 – claim for 9,926,400 against OZK
A check in the court records shows that 281 and 731 have already been terminated, and it is a matter of days for 233 to be terminated.
By order of “Petko & Co…”
BIRD sources said that this brutal violation of the public financial interest is far from being on the sole initiative of Director Nachev, who is clearly another fuse in the right place. The order to terminate the cases came personally (and orally) from the caretaker minister Petko Nikolov – for whom there have been suspicions for years that he is the machine of the deep state and serves the interests of non-accidental oligarchs. The termination coincided with the withdrawal of the powers of the Dobrev & Lyutskanov law firm, which seems to have done too well and respectively worried Kovachki (and hence Petko & Co. respectively). Moreover, as far as there were indications that case 233/2024 was to be announced for decision on July 11, at the beginning of the month there was a feverish rush to overtake this development. Insofar as a waiver of a claim in a case that has already been announced for resolution – albeit theoretically allowed – would seem extremely suspicious and inexplicable.
BIRD’s sources also shared that the caretaker minister is “pressing” Montagi to terminate other lawsuits filed against non-random companies for other scandalous projects. The so-called “government complex”, for example, is also currently the subject of a lawsuit, insofar as millions of state money were spent there without real implementation. Commercial case 636/2024 of the Sofia City Court is scheduled for November 5, which gives Petko & Co. enough time to withdraw this claim as well. The indications are that this will happen soon.
Next, we come to the “icing on the cake” – the case for the Plovdiv Fair. As BIRD reported a few days ago, although won at first instance, there are two more instances in this case. Here the party to the case is directly the Ministry of Economy, so the role of “Petko & Co” is even more direct and immediate. In all likelihood, the powers of the above-mentioned law firm will soon be terminated in this case, and a new, convenient law firm will be chosen to receive verbal instructions and do everything possible for Gergov to win the case at second instance. And the third is the Supreme Court of Cassation, where, however, commercial cases are rarely allowed to be considered on the merits.
Full official support for Kovachki (and for the Wolf)
It is worth recalling that state-owned companies – especially under the umbrella of caretaker cabinets, which of course have nothing to do with GERB and MRF – have a rich tradition in serving oligarchic interests. For example, at the beginning of 2023 – with Energy Minister “Captain Gazprom” (Rosen Hristov) – Kozloduy NPP donated BGN 130 million to companies again associated with Kovachki. The scandal then remained under the carpet, and the casket was too busy investigating Nexo, the “coup” of Karo and other fabricated cases to pay attention to this colossal damage and wasted state money.
That is why we do not expect – although it would be right – that the current government will pay attention to this mismanagement on a particularly large scale. And most of all, to pay special attention to the cases of the Petkovs, and not only to his fuse Nachev, whose signature is under the scandalous agreement.
There is also a political aspect to the scandal against the backdrop of the open war for supremacy between Delyan Peevski and Ahmed Dogan. In this battle, Kovachki and the Wolf apparently took the side of the Honorary Inhabitant of the Sarai. We can make a reasonable and informed assumption that part of the “price” for Kovachki’s support for Sokola is precisely this gift of over BGN 14 million. The modest gesture correlates with the judicial support for the Wolf and the brazen attempts of a Pernik judge to save the illegal Wolfserai near the Iskar Dam from demolition. This, in turn, could be the price for the support of the Wolf for Dogan in his battle against Peevski. In this case, the connection to Dogan could be traced through the head of the SAS, Daniela Doncheva, traditionally considered a cadre of the MRF, who by her order sent Judge Velkova to Pernik shortly before she “accidentally” fell on the case for the demolition of the seraglio of Rumen Gaitanski – the Wolf.
Материалът How the state gave Kovachki over 14 million from the scandalous “Montagi” е публикуван за пръв път на BIRD.
