Kovachki-linked company loses 35m-euro arbitration case against Serbia

The Bulgarian company “Kornikom

” Ltd., connected to the energy “consultant” Hristo Kovachki, which until 2014 was owned by a former MP

from the coalition of the party “Leader” and the BBC, lost a large-scale arbitration case

for 35 million euros, which led against Serbia in arbitration to the World Bank. The company was ordered to pay close EUR 6 million in costs. The lawsuit was filed in 2019 for damages caused to the company by the Serbian government due to the cancellation of the privatization contract for the Kovin coal mine in Serbia (left in the leading photo). For details of the award of the arbitration delivered on 20 September 2023, it is understood by
publication
in a specialized American edition.

The Serbian government has proven in the arbitration process that it terminated Kornicom’s privatisation contract because it violated its terms, including social commitments to workers.. It sounds familiar, but in Bulgaria no one ever dares to hold companies accountable from “
“The Smoking Empire
.” to the “consultant” for such violations. There is no exception to the government.”The assembly“.

Already the fifth The blockade of key thoroughfares in Bulgaria continues due to the protests of energy and miners. Media reports show that some of the protesters are employees of TPP “Brickel”, TPP “Bobov Dol”, TPP “Veliko Tarnovo”, TPP “Sliven” and other companies “consulted” by Kovachki.

The former Attorney General Ivan Geshev Called “Businessmen and Socially disadvantaged consultants like Domuschiev and Kovachki” businessmen who did not want to “They give their brains to the prosecutor’s office.“.

Last year, BIRD
informed
for the ongoing case against Serbia in arbitration at the World Bank. In September 2022, the case was announced for decision, and a few days ago the decision itself came out. So far, it has not been published in its entirety, but BIRD will follow this as well – in principle, decisions are published several months late, except in some rare cases.

Offshores, proxies and British-by-mould

“An army of politically appointed proxies and straw companies conceal the identity of the controversial Bulgarian energy oligarch who seeks compensation from Serbia,” they wrote

. in 2019 by the BIRN investigative network. The qualification “contradictory” is quite mild. For Kovachki’s connections in Bulgarian politics, buckets of ink can be written, but for the purposes of this material our emphasis is elsewhere. It seems that the Consultant’s tricks do not help him win the case against Serbia.

Previous analyses of BIRD have shown the tangle of companies and proxies, behind which the dark shadow of the Consultant invariably emerges.. Property in the mine in Serbia is also diligently disguised behind hollow mailboxes and straw faces. From the BIRN publication we understand some important details – one of these persons is the one born in 1970. Roger Stewart Popleton (Roger Stuart Poppleton), who seems to be the son of the 83-year-old Stuart Ralph Popleton (Stuart Ralph Poppleton) – proud British owner of “Toplofikatsia Burgas‘ through Bovard LTD.

Roger Stewart Popleton is the owner of Laumer Limited

., which has owned the Serbian coal mine since 2014. The same offshore company “Laumer Limited” is also the owner of “Mini Open Coal Mining

EAD – which has accumulated over BGN 46 million. Debt to the NRA. Itself ‘Kornicom

Ltd. reports more modestly – “only” BGN 1.6 million. debt.

But there’s something else. By 2014.”Kornicom” is owned by
Chavdar Slavchev Peychev
– former
MP
from the coalition of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Leader party – Kovachki’s former party – and appearing in many of the companies of the “coal emperor”. The property then goes briefly through someone.
Gyuro Gyurov
(not a joke) to end up in
Dimitar Ivanov Stefanov
. Regarding the latter, in 2021 a public executor of the NRA imposes a distraint on his property in “Kornikom” – due to alleged tax liabilities in large amounts. Two years later, however, The NRA itself lifts the lien, and the reason is that the audit act has not established the existence of such obligations. How exactly the revision was conducted – and how exactly The tax audits of the people around Kovachki end (almost) always safely – it remains only to guess.

BRIN describes in the publication

on the arbitration claim for the mine a Serbian company Energy Consulting and Engineering, ECE and the Bulgarian (Eko Analiz) “Eco Analysis

” EOOD owned by Dowan Limited

, with declared “actual” owner Sava Panagiotis (Savva Panagiotis). “Eco Analysis” is a pledged creditor of “Brickel

EAD – it owned by Bakkar Limited

and belonged to an even older British pensioner (born 1939). David Fordham), but now it’s Roy Kennedy’s (Roy Kennedy) – all present on the map with the “smoking empire” consulted by Kovachki.

Last but not least, BIRD got acquainted with the current financial situation of “Kornikom”

Ltd.. The company declared for 2022 the impressive assets of BGN 54 million – however, they mainly consist of receivables and loans, most likely inside the closed system of tangle companies. Financial and accounting equipment that has been refined over the years. Against these “assets”, however, stand liabilities for about BGN 60 million – and so it turns out that the equity is minus BGN 6 million. In other words, it is Zombie Society, if we can express ourselves more non-standardly. Moreover, for 2022 they have been declared Over 3 million leva loss.

In conclusion, we should say the following: hardly the tragic financial situation of the company over the years has escaped the watchful eye of the Serbian state and its American lawyers Williams & Connolly.

What’s next in Bulgaria

In the near future, the Serbian state will seek its own expenses. In the case through the so-called. (partial) exequatur. As far as the company “Kornikom” Ltd. is Bulgarian, these proceedings will have to be developed before the Sofia City Court (SCC) – which has special local and generic jurisdiction in this type of proceedings. A similar example can be given in a case where Peevski’s lawyer on duty Alexander Angelov seriously
screwed up
. The case is not identical, but there are some similarities and similarities to the current one – in 2017 the SCC finally Reject the “defense” of Sofia Airport and it was forced to pay tens of millions to a Kuwaiti investor who won an arbitration case against the airport. The difference is that in the case of Kovachki, ICSID decisions categorically cannot be appealed anywhere, but are only subject to automatic enforcement. That is, the SCC (and then the CAC and the SCC) are fully bound by the ICSID Convention, to which Bulgaria is a party, and There is no way to refuse to enforce the decision. in the part of the costs in favour of Serbia. Nor are judges entitled to discretion in this regard. Theoretically, however, Kovachki can easily pay for his masraffa only from the generous state subsidies for cold reserve and “balancing capacities“, which the Electricity System Operator (understand DPS) has been pouring into the TPPs “consulted” by Kovachki for years. But in practice, it is not very clear whether the particular company “Cornicom” has something to pay an amount of about 6 million euros. In view of its financial situation described above, there are serious and justified doubts. Unless Serbia has thought about the issue in advance and has taken the necessary measures.

And of course, for dessert we can not help but “praise” Kovachki’s lawyers – the same White & Case who lost our case for Belene NPP, after which we paid the Russians over BGN 1 billion. Courtesy of Man-from-Bankya, who missed the time limit for appeal. The same White & Case, for which you have recently and quite irrigated We told, in the context of the “oddities” that have been happening in the Ministry of Finance for years – and especially related to some of its key functionaries. The same law firm that is subscribed to the state sofra for at least 20 years. So, when we said sofra – according to BIRD information, between 2 and 3 million euros were paid between 2 and 3 million euros in fees to the American law firm (as much as the BNB paid them in the case RICO in New York). At the same time, companies from the “smoking empire” owe Hundreds of millions of levs of the Bulgarian treasury and continue to accumulate new debts

! Otherwise, the NRA very much wants to collect the obligations, but it seems that in this case they have no desire to delve into the matter.

Leading photo: Hristo Kovachki (in the middle of the small photo), the Kovin mine in Serbia (left), Kovachki’s luxury villa on the Cote d’Azur in France (right)

***

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