Bosnia and Herzegovina's debt to the Slovenian "Viaduct" company that won the arbitration case against the state, is growing by almost 20 thousand Bosnian marks (some € 10,000) every day, and the Council of Ministers is in charge of repaying it. The verdict was passed over two years ago, and the debt has increased by approximately 10 million marks since then.

The chance to prevent the damage was missed at the 57th session of the Council of Ministers, held on July 31, where the proposal of the State Attorney's Office was presented, according to which the Government of Republika Srpska (RS) entity should pay the requested amount within 15 days or the State Ministry of Finance should do so, in case the Government ignores the conclusion. State ministers from Republika Srpska – Stasa Kosarac, Srdjan Amidzic, Nenad Nesic and the Deputy Minister of Communications and Transport of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ognjen Janjic – were against such a proposal, without explanation.

“If we observe the period from July 31, 2024, when the 57th session of the Council of Ministers was held, until August 29, 2024, when the 58th Session of the Council of Ministers was held, it is evident that the interest in favour of the plaintiff for just 29 days was calculated in the amount of 520,862.21 Bosnian marks. We state this because only the use of annual leave by the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, based on the increase in claims, cost more than half a million marks”, Predrag Baros, the legal representative of “Viaduct” told N1.

During the 56th session of the Council of Ministers, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Stasa Kosarac, voted against the earlier mentioned proposal claiming that RS institutions were not consulted during the formation of the proposal of the Office of the Attorney General. The question is whether voting against the proposal puts the Minister at risk of criminal prosecution for negligent work in the service because their vote deepens the negative consequences since the basis for calculating the interest that must also be paid to Slovenians grows day by day, which significantly increases every day the initial amount of 90 million marks (some €45 million).

RS Minister of Energy and Mining Petar Djokic commented on this outcome of the vote for Capital.ba, stating that some issues are not clear, including the one according to which the arbitration decision is executed.

“We know who should execute it, but we don't know for whose benefit it should be executed. There are two natural persons who initiated the arbitration, and then some fund appeared that gave some information about itself that is outside the European area. These are open questions, we are not sure whom we should pay. Those issues should be resolved in an adequate way beforehand, so that then we know what the fate of the way of fulfilling that obligation is,” said Djokic.

The Slovenian legal representative, Predrag Baroc, considers the Minister’s statement to be pointless. Information about the procedure is available on the website of the “Baros, Bicakcic & Partners” legal office and it states that the fact that the clients, representatives of “Viaduct”, did not have financial resources for arbitration is not a secret. Everything is provided through the so-called “Third party funding”, i.e. funds financing the costs of arbitration proceedings.

“By chance, we met the American lawyer Timothy Scrantom, who is one of the originators of the idea of ​​financing arbitration by the Funds. Scrantom showed great interest in the case from the very beginning. At the time of the filing of the lawsuit and initiation of the arbitration proceedings against Bosnia and Herzegovina, the financing issue had not yet been resolved, however, through attorney Scrantom, the “Vanin Capital” Fund agreed to finance the arbitration proceedings and initially approved $ 2.5 million for the costs of the proceedings,” “Viaduct” legal representative’s website said.

It's no secret that RS representatives are trying to avoid paying millions in damages in any way possible. Immediately after the verdict, they sent a request to the Arbitration Council in London to annul the decision of the court in Washington, but that move did not bear fruit. All legal mechanisms have been exhausted, and with the decision of the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo from August 29 this year, the verdict was recognized and it became enforceable on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is interesting that the entire amount to be collected is billed to the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, even though the arbitration is conducted due to the unfulfilled contract concluded between the Slovenians and the RS Government.
The contract from 2004 was worth € 165 million and it was supposed to ensure the construction of hydroelectric power plants “Krupa” and “Banjaluka Niska”. The arbitration took place after “HES Vrbas”, majority-owned by a Slovenian company, sent the RS Government a compensation claim of 46 million marks, in October 2015, due to the unilateral termination of the contract.

It is particularly interesting that before starting the arbitration dispute, the Slovenians tried to settle with the RS Government on two occasions, first asking for 8 million marks, and then 23 million marks in compensation. However, the representatives of the entity Government did not agree to this, fearing that they would take responsibility and thus cause even greater damage to the institutions.