- The Case of ATP Vojvodina under the European Commission Monitoring

I bought ATP Vojvodina Company in 2004 at a public bidding at the Privatization Agency. I offered the highest price and became the majority owner. During the first year I accomplished the Investment Plan, then I bought 30 new buses, started new lines, expanded business activities and employed another 200 workers. Next year, on the basis of the Contract with Novi Sad authorities headed by that time Mayor Maja Gojković, I built a complex containing new intercity and international Bus Station and a modern EvoBus Service for the needs of Setra and Mercedes, which should have covered the territory of the Balkans. However, the investment has never started to work because the City authorities did not fulfill their part of the Contract because they did not redirect the traffic to the new location. They were following the interest of the individuals from Credit Agricole Bank – namely interest of Aleksandar Divljak, who was beyond the objectives of the businessmen and state.

Who has he been working for, against the interest of the state and of all the trustees?

Under the pressure of the credit installments, ATP Vojvodina bankrupted and more than 500 workers lost their jobs. The Reorganization Plan was voted in late August 2011, and I as the investor with the process role of an intervener, was conducting very hard and complicated court procedures in the interest of all the trustees and only then in my own interest. The biggest trustee -Credit Agricole Bank prevented through its member of the Supervisor Committee payment of the demands through the bankruptcy procedure. Illegally and supported by the Bankruptcy Trustee Nikola Pavlović and Bankruptcy Judge Vladislav Kurtek, their illegal separate credibility was accepted. In January 2013 a final and executive court decision was made in favour of ATP Vojvodina in accordance with which all the trustees and would be paid and all the workers would get back their job, but the Bank prevented execution of that decision through its representative in the Supervisor Committee in ATP Vojvodina. In the same time, the Bank was having secret talks with the City. Organized by Aleksandar Divljak from Credit Agricole Bank, leading people of the City of Novi Sad, Bankruptcy Trustee Nikola Pavlović and the police from Novi Sad, there were mounted criminal charges launched against me as the damaged investor. It is strange that a team composed of Novi Sad police members, while investigating the case of ATP Vojvodina which is on the list of 24 compromized privatizations as the only one with the investor but not the state as the damaged party, “did not see” that the Bank had entered mortgage on the newly built facilities which, in accordance with the Contract, were not the subject of the mortgage.

Illegale entering of the mortgage by Credit Agricole Bank on the newly built facilities of ATP Vojvodina (new Bus Station and EvoBus Service Centre for the needs of Setra and Mercedes)

After that, they launched criminal charges against me personally at the Higher Court in Belgrade for the entire amount of the loan with Credit Agricole Bank. The judges did not read the case, the economy expert Svetlana Djordjević (mother-in-law of one of the Higher Court judges) was in charge of the case and she did not respond to the remarks given by my lawyer pointing to the illegal expertise. Credit Agricole Bank headed by the Bank secretary Aleksandar Divljak influenced upon other banks to file charges against me personally and to burden me with all the credit obligations relating the ATP Vojvodina investment. At the moment of introduction of bankruptcy in ATP Vojvodina Company in 2008, the estimated value of the newly built facilities, licences and business potentials was more than 100 million Euros. Through the bankruptcy and 12 years later, everything was estimated at the value of 6 million Euros. How has it happened that through the bankruptcy, the basic function of which is to save the assets and pay the trustees, the Company has been so drastically devalued? They now want to put on me all the obligations regarding all the credits; they are selling the Company to the promised buyers for nothing and Aleksandar Divljak, as an arrow in somebody else’s arch, is going to acquire a legal property benefit.

The events taking place now about the case of ATP Vojvodina should wake up the Special Prosecution from their deep sleep.

Sincerely Yours, ATP Vojvodina investor Ilija Dević