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Medved: Contract With Interblue Group Now Terminated
Wednesday 03 March 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, March 3 (TASR) - The Environment Ministry regards the contract with American company the Interblue Group for the sale of the country's surplus emission quotas as terminated, Environment Minister Jozef Medved said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Medved explained that the company in question went out of business in December 2009, and that the ministry has received no documentation confirming any transfer of rights to a firm called Interblue Group Europe, based in Switzerland. Medved intends to take legal action to obtain the additional €15-million that Interblue was supposed to pay in exchange for so-called green projects.
The case goes back to 2008, when Slovakia sold 15 million tonnes of emission quotas to the Interblue Group for €75 million at €5.05 per tonne. The deal was harshly criticised by the Opposition and received huge media attention because neighbouring countries sold their quotas directly to other states for €10 per tonne or even more and Interblue's alleged headquarters in the U.S.A. were found to be located in a garage.
According to the contract, an extra euro per tonne should have been paid for the aforementioned green projects, but this didn't happen. Interblue Europe representative Jana Luetken said in early December that the projects weren't well defined, and that the company therefore wouldn't pay the outstanding €15 million to Slovakia.
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