02. 06. 2005

MEDIA GROUP SUES MINISTER

BELGRADE, June 2, 2005 – Two groups of minority shareholders of the Novosti media company have announced that they will be taking Minister of Economy Predrag Bubalo to court. The charges are being brought up by the Novosti 2004 shareholders union and the Novosti small shareholders association, who together represent about 60 percent of the company small shareholders, and say that Bubalo is “putting obvious pressure on the Securities Commission.” President of Novosti 2004, Momir Cabarkapa, said that Bubalo “is trying to do what Slobodan Milosevic was not able to; nationalize the Novosti company.” “In a letter to Milko Stimac, president of the Securities Commission, Bubalo calls into question the privatization of Novosti by using legal measures that the Milosevic had implemented on the media company on March 2, 2000”, Cabarkapa said. According to him, the company’s assembly scheduled for June 4 would not be affected. On the other hand, the Economy Ministry has released a statement saying that “all share-selling activity for the Novosti company should be put to a stop.” “There are legal problems that exist with the Novosti company, which is why all activity related to the selling and buying of company shares should be ended”, Bubalo said in the letter which he had sent to Stimac. He added that “with the ruling of the High Court of Commerce on February 16, 2000, the documentation for economic and ownership transformation was deemed void and an analysis of invested capital in the Novosti company was ordered. On the basis of this, all work related to the confirmation of the total worth of the company’s capital and its distribution was made void as well”, Bubalo said.