INDEX news portal, which broke the Hotmail affair by publishing the email exchanges of the Borg Group and former Deputy Prime Minister Dalić, published today few new emails showing that there might have been differences in treatment of creditors at the beginning of the interim administration.

Apparently, the Agrokor administrators did not disclose what claims they paid, which could affect the selection of the Creditors Council.

The Law required all claims established before 10 April 2017 to be frozen and converted into claims to be decided on by the Creditors Council in the settlement.

On the other hand, new claims, those created after 10 April 2017, were to be paid out of current income. However, the Administrator did have a right to pay old claims if “it was important for the ongoing operations”. Finally, the margin debt referred to clams created before 10 April 2017, but that would be due past that date. Such margin debt was apparently also immediately paid out of current revenue.

But it seems that exact payments and to which creditors they were made was not revealed neither to the public, nor to the creditors (C. and judging from the Commercial Court request made in April, nor to the Court tasked with oversight of the operation).

Index claims that some creditors were able to convert the bills of exchange into direct claims, in spite of the alleged policy of the Administration not to accept bills of exchange from the suppliers. The difference, apparently, stems from the fact that the suppliers treated the bills as security, whereas Agrokor considered them as payments. Apparently, Agrokor gave in to pressure from some suppliers converting their old debt into margin debt, which meant that instead of waiting for the settlement and getting whatever pennies on the dollar are agreed in the end, some select suppliers were granted payment of their invoices from operational income. This would, of course, create a situation where some suppliers are in a better position than the others.

The additional problem with the bills of exchange was that some of them were issued with recourse back to the suppliers. So when Agrokor was unable to pay the bills to the factoring companies, they in turn tried to collect from the suppliers.

INDEX published emails that, in their view, demonstrate that Kraš was one of those companies who successfully bullied the Agrokor administration into agreeing to take back the bills. This also meant that Kraš’ invoices suddenly went from “paid” to “outstanding”, which meant they were to be covered from regular operational revenue. According to Index, this worked for Kraš, Podravka and Badel, and possibly for Atlantic Trade, P&G and Nestle Adriatic. For Kraš, this apparently included bills related to supplies delivered before 10 April but with a due date after that day.  Another email seems to indicate that some companies were able to return the bills, which were then filed separately in Agrokor, and convert their debt back to marginal debt to be paid from regular operations.

Apparently the Prva Kreditna Zavarovalnica, a Slovenian lending insurance company, also asked Agrokor for criteria on deciding whose invoices would be paid since their some of their clients were offered payment while others have not.

An additional email from Agrokor’s treasury of 25 April 2017 indicates that some of Agrokor advisors proposed “commercial contracts” for some Agrokor’s suppliers including Zdenka, Kraš and Atlantic.

Index also reports that the then-Administrator Ramljak and Kraš had a previous relationship as Kraš hired Ramljak’s company Texo Management to consult to fend off a hostile takeover attempt from Braća Pivac.

This affair was also at the heart of one of Franck’s complaints to the Commercial Court, which asked the Court for a complete list of Agrokor’s payments to suppliers. At the time of writing, Kraš comments were not available.