OLaNO: If ZSSK Gets Fine, Management Should Pay It and Resign

Bratislava, September 25 (TASR) - If suspicions raised by the European Commission against railway passenger carrier ZSSK Slovensko are confirmed and the firm is fined, the ZSSK management should pay the penalty out of its own pocket and subsequently step down, opposition Ordinary People (OLaNO) MP Jan Marosz said on Tuesday. Marosz responded this way to the statement of objections by the European Commission, according to which ZSSK had prevented it from carrying out an inspection back in June 2016 by providing inaccurate information and deleting data from a laptop. The inspection at ZSSK was part of an antitrust inquiry in the rail passenger transport sector. The Commission suspected that ZSSK may have concluded anti-competitive agreements aimed at shutting out competing rail passenger transport operators from the market, which is in breach of EU antitrust rules. "Only half a year following the inspection by the European Commission, private carrier RegioJet left the main line (Bratislava-Kosice) in the wake of a series of political decisions made by (ex-prime minister) Robert Fico, (Parliamentary Chair) Andrej Danko and ZSSK management, such as the introduction of free-of-charge transport and the return of state IC trains," claimed Marosz. According to OLaNO, ZSSK maintained back then that the European Commission inquired about procedures surrounding the sale of rolling stock. "If this were truly so, then ZSSK could have taken advantage of its dominant position, by employing, for instance, disproportionate purchasing and selling prices or other unfair trade practices," said OLaNO. mf/mcs