Last Thursday, the Riga City Latgale District Court fully acquitted Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and Member of the Saeima Atis Zakatistovs and businessman Viesturs Tamužs.
Both were accused of fraud, which, according to the prosecutor, was carried out by paying Zakatistovs €2,000 per month as a reward for consultations he allegedly did not provide (a total of €26,600). This money was paid to Zakatistovs by SIA Eco Baltia Grupa, but the consultations, which the prosecutor claims were fictitious, were given to Viesturs Tamužs, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of SIA Eco Baltia Grupa's parent company, the joint stock company Eco Baltia. Consequently, during the pre-trial investigation, SIA Eco Baltia Grupa was recognized as a victim.
However, both shortly before and during the court proceedings, the victim, SIA Eco Baltia Grupa, made submissions that no suffering or material damage had been caused to the company - the consultations had been received, they were in the interests of the company, and it was in accordance with the "true factual and legal circumstances". This was established by an in-depth audit.
As was pointed out during the debate, if the victim itself confirms that no damage has been caused to its property interests, then no criminal offence can be established, or, in legal terms, there is no object of the criminal offence of fraud.
Consequently, in accordance with the case law of the Senate of the Supreme Court, the court must acquit in this case, which it did last Thursday.
Moreover, none of the witnesses examined during the trial testified that Zakatistovs' consultations were a sham. Officials of SIA Eco Baltia Grupa testified that they had no knowledge of the content of the consultations; they only knew that Zakatistovs had been hired as a consultant. Members of the Supervisory Board of JSC Eco Baltia, on the other hand, testified that the outside advice was necessary; the advice provided by Zakatistovs was valuable enough for the development of the company; the amount of money paid was relatively modest for a group where millions of investments are being decided.
Moreover, there is absolutely no reason to doubt Zakatistovs' competence to advise a company whose core business is environmental management. Zakatistovs holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Ottawa in 2001, specializing in environmental philosophy. He has taught at several universities in Canada, including courses in environmental philosophy at the University of Ottawa.
In 2003, Zakatistovs returned to Latvia, where he continues to lecture on environmental philosophy and ethics, as well as business sustainability and ethics, at several universities.
Despite these arguments, after the acquittal in the summary judgment, prosecutor Māris Urbāns told LTV's "Panorāma" that he would ask the court to draw up a full judgment, which he would appeal. If this is indeed the case, Zakatistovs and Tamužs will be dragged through the courts for some time to come, while considerable public resources will continue to be spent on this absurd process.
During the trial, it also became clear why SIA Eco Baltia Grupa, whose Chairman of the Board was Māris Simanovičs at the time, had initially taken action against the highest official of the entire group - Tamužs, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of JSC Eco Baltia - for allegedly defrauding 26,000 euros from a company that he himself owns and which is worth millions of euros. Among other things, Tamužs was the founder of this group, who over time attracted other shareholders to the company, including Simanovičs.
The reason why Simanovičs initiated the action against Tamužs by SIA Eco Baltia Grupa was the classic one - a conflict over money, which took the form of a shareholders' dispute over the development scenarios of the group (Simanovičs wanted to engage in the Tīrīga cartel together with his fiercest competitors, whereas Tamužs and his associates thought that they should invest in the waste recycling business). The main motive was Simanovičs' desire to buy a majority of shares in JSC Eco Baltia at a reduced price. As Tamužs testified in court, he and his partner Undīne Būde managed to sell the shares to a Lithuanian investment fund at an adequate price, so Simanovičs did not succeed in his plans, even though the criminal proceedings and litigation certainly caused material losses, as well as damage to his reputation and health.
However, during the trial, there was minimal mention of what the criminal proceedings were about in the first place.
Shockingly enough, these criminal proceedings were opened against completely different persons and for much more serious alleged offences.
Namely, this criminal case was initiated because of very real suspicions that the Swiss lawyer Rudolf Meroni had illegally financed the MP Artuss Kaimiņš and his then party KPV LV through fictitious advertising contracts. Specifically, criminal proceedings were initiated for "illegal party financing, intermediation in party financing and acceptance of illegal financing" because, and we quote, "Rudolf Meroni, using his personal and company financial resources, allegedly carried out illegal financing of several political parties on a large scale through other persons".
The reason why Rudolf Meroni might have wanted to illegally finance "several political parties" is also clearly stated in the procedural documents: "The criminal proceedings revealed that the Swiss lawyer Rudolf Meroni, who was entrusted by the Prosecutor General's Office with the management of the property belonging to the family of Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs, may have illegally financed political parties and individual politicians wanting to influence political processes and political decisions in Latvia."
KNAB had identified a rather impressive sum of €200,000, which had been funneled through fictitious advertisements into the company Suņu Būda of Artuss Kaimiņš, a Member of the Saeima. This was not the only money flowing from Rudolf Meroni's companies into the pockets of politicians.
Usually, suspicions of illegal party financing, especially if it involves a foreigner, attract the special attention of both ombudsmen and rival politicians. Strangely, this is not the case - Meroni is almost untouchable in Latvia.
But then, at the end of 2017, the episode of Zakatistovs' consultations to Tamužs, which was initially also treated as illegal party financing, was added to the criminal proceedings against Meroni and Kaimiņš. Seven months later, a performance was even organized by detaining MP Kaimiņš, Zakatistovs and Tamužs in a temporary detention isolator for a few days, but the fact that Meroni was also involved in the case was not made public at the time.
But later on, the illegal financing of the parties and, of course, Meroni disappeared from the case, and he was able to continue managing the large companies of Ventspils in peace. All that was left was the consultancy case described here (split off into a new criminal case) and the case against Kaimiņš for falsification of accounting data, which the judge hopes to conclude "by autumn".