Magyar Telekom admitted and accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials, including responsibility for signing a contract with Sigma through which payments were made to Ana \u0110ukanovi\u0107, which can be seen from the Agreement on suspended criminal prosecution, signed with the U.S. judicial authorities due to corruption during the purchase of telecommunication companies in Montenegro and Macedonia.<\/p>\n
According to the charges of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a total of \u20ac7.3 million of bribe went to the accounts of four companies, behind which were Montenegrin officials. The consulting contracts aimed to disguise payments of Magyar Telekom to Montenegrin officials who provided them with two thirds of the shares of the Montenegrin company through the purchase of shares of minority shareholders.<\/p>\n
Concerning specifically the deal with Sigma through which \u0110ukanovi\u0107 was paid, Magyar Telekom admitted in this agreement that it was a payment of services in the amount of \u20ac580 thousand that were not actually provided, and that this payment was falsely presented as a cost for consulting services.<\/p>\n
Also, in the indictment against Magyar Telekom, it is stated that this contract was made to hide payments to the “sister of a high Montenegrin official” through Sigma company. The indictment also confirms that the “sister” did not provide any services to Magyar Telekom or Telekom Crna Gora under that contract.<\/p>\n
Describing the contract with Sigma, the agreement states that their purpose was to hide the identity of other parties, not to accurately describe the actual services to be provided, that the goal was to achieve business success, but that they were concluded after the relevant unforeseen costs were already covered by other service providers. It also states that the contract does not serve any legitimate business purpose, and is based on false confirmations of the results achieved and fabricated evidence of these results. “The services defined by these contracts are duplicated services previously provided to Magyar Telekom by the known parties at significantly lower prices,” the agreement states.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the Chief Special State Prosecutor, Milivoje Katni\u0107, believed that Ana \u0110ukanovi\u0107 nevertheless provided the services for which she was paid for and left her name out of the Montenegrin indictment. He justified this by claiming that it was a contract that was concluded after the privatization of Telekom Crna Gora.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, SEC indictment alleges that one of the heads of Magyar Telekom, Tamas Morvai, “signed a contract on behalf of Magyar Telekom’s subsidiary and antedated the contract”, and that the legal services that the “sister of an official” claimed that had been provided were instead provided by internal and regular external advisors to Magyar Telekom at much lower prices.<\/p>\n
Ana \u0110ukanovi\u0107 (then Kolarevi\u0107), sister of Montenegrin President Milo \u0110ukanovi\u0107, who was the Prime Minister at the time of sale of Telekom, admitted that she had provided consulting services to Telekom via Sigma.<\/p>\n
In TV show \u017diva istina in November 2012, she denied her participation in Telekom affair, because she did not work for the company during the privatization. She said she was working on the legal reorganization of the company after the privatization was completed. According to her, Telekom paid her \u20ac246,000 for these services through Sigma company, and she received that money in Montenegro through her account in Atlas bank.<\/p>\n
At the beginning of the week, MANS sent a question to Ana \u0110ukanovi\u0107 as to why she did not work with Telekom through her law firm, but through Sigma company, but there was no answer.<\/p>\n