ESTEVE suspects politics in bribery accusation

Photo: esteve.ee

In limelight due to Port of Tallinn bribery scandal, ESTEVE Terminal thinks the accusations are related to battles for ferryboat procurement in no way related to the activities of the enterprise. 

«Of course the Port of Tallinn managers have not received money from ESTEVE, and we have not entered any contract unlawfully,» Esteve holding company Baltic Maritime Logistics Group BMLG’s chief Ants Ratas told Postimees. «I have met with the men who withdrew from the management of our company because of the bribery scandal, and they assure me nothing illegal has been done. The entire bribery thing is happening around politics and the ferryboat procurement.»

The main contacts linked to operations of ESTEVE were entered with Port of Tallinn before Baltic Maritime Logistics Group ever obtained the company. Mr Ratas said the claims published in media alleging that ESTEVE chairman was in Tõnis Pohla was in negotiations to buy Kihnu Veeteed are not true. Neither have investigators said that the company is linked to the bribery suspicion.

ESTEVE Terminal CEO Üllar Raad and Tõnis Pohla left management bodies due to reputation damage without pleading guilty. «The further career of the dismissed managers in the company will be determined what emerges in investigation,» added Mr Ratas.

Mr Raad assured Postimees he has not given bribes to Port of Tallinn managers and suspicions by investigators are without basis. «They took documents from the company but I have not been accused. They just asked if I had anything to say,» Mr Raad told Postimees. «The investigators explained to me that they have some kind of a suspicion that we have paid money based on an invoice presented by one company which was for some other purpose, as if, than written on the invoice.»

Yesterday BMLG council said it okayed applications to withdraw by the managers who came under suspicion at the end of August, as they desired to distance themselves from management of the company till criminal proceedings launched regarding them are ended.

The criminal proceedings have not affected the daily economic activities of the group as the suspicion has only been presented against physical persons and not the companies.

Established in 2000, Baltic Maritime Logistics Group is a holding company involved in strategic planning and financial management which has, by establishing and taking over companies, invested in logistics enterprises in six EU states and Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. BMLG’s subsidiaries and related companies forward goods, provide shipping and line agent services, represent ocean container ship lines, charter, administrate maritime, railway and road transport, and provide port and stevedore services. In 2014, the group’s sales revenue exceeded €125m. The group totals over 650 employees in nine countries.

Also related to the Port of Tallinn bribery case, investigators arrested Eno Saar, CEO of Tallink-owned stevedore company HTG Invest, who also decided to exit company’s board due to the suspicion.  

As reported by Äripäev, Mr Saar thereafter undertook to play with personal assets. At the beginning of September, Mr Saar’s DDP Est OÜ’s shares were assumed by Sander Saar and Signe Saar. Regarding an apartment belonging to him, and three apartments and a lot acquired jointly with wife, on the first day of September a notarial note has appeared in land register about registration application, and the reference attached warns that the proceedings have not been concluded and the land register may be lacking certain entries.