The future of a planned multi-million-dollar oil and gas terminal in Albania has been questioned as owners – high profile businessmen in the Balkans Vojin Lazarevic and Damir Fazlic – face numerous debts and confiscation orders.
Serbian energy entrepreneur Vojin Lazarevic and his business partner, Bosnian Damir Fazlic, had planned to transform a boggy land near the Albanian port of Durres, 30 kilometers west of Tirana, at an international oil and gas terminal.
But their plan has made a big turn back as 15 hectares of land bought from the Porto Romano parcel through a network of companies abroad have been seized by Albanian banks, documents from the Tirana Court testify.
According to documents provided by BIRN in the Serbian courts, one of the main companies in this investment scheme – Alpha Ltd with headquarters in Tirana – also risks collasing by Intesa Bank in Serbia as part of bankruptcy proceedings initiated against Belgrade’s Lazarevic firm , Rudnap Group AD.
The company, which has been one of the largest energy market operators in the Balkans with an annual turnover of 600m euros, has recorded losses in 2013 and 2014 and has failed to pay a 24m-euro loan from Intesa Bank.
Rudnap Group’s auditors reported a “significant drop in volume in electricity trading” in the last quarter of 2014, while there were no sales in December of that year.
This situation of the company is a big difference between the years 2007 and 2011, whem Crown Acquisitions and Alpha Shpk.
The Union Bank has also opened a public auction for 7 hectares that were used as collateral for a $ 840,000 credit for Crown Acquisition.
At the same time, construction firm Vega Shpk, which has leveled the terrain on land purchased by Fazlic and Lazarevic, successfully sued Alpha Shpk for 933,000 euros and asked for permission from the court to sell the same eight acres currently placed at auction by Tirana Bank.
Serbian problems
Financial difficulties for the businessman’s doubts do not end there. In March 2015, the Serbian branch of Intesa Bank filed a petition at Belgrade’s commercial court to open bankruptcy proceedings for the Rudnap Group as the latter failed to repay a 21-million-euro loan, BIRN has uncovered.
The Intesa Bank for this loan has a mortgage on agricultural land in Serbia, which is owned by the Rudnap branch, Rudnap Agrar and Alpha Shpk, headquartered in Tirana.
In response to Intesa’s request, the Rudnap Group itself applied in the following month to initiate bankruptcy proceedings with a pre-planned restructuring plan in order to deal with all its debts.
The court has decided to deal with Rudnap’s request earlier in order to evaluate all the allegations raised against her by the creditors, although no date has been set for any of the claims.
Last year, BIRN discovered that in 2013 Lazarevic’s Rudnap Group faced difficulties in paying off two 27-million-euro loans to the Austrian Hypo Bank, which then transferred to Austrian controversial businessman Martin Schlaff, who had been partner of Lazarevic in a luxury tourism project in Montenegro. In return, Lazarevic gave up his actions in the still unobstructed project.
Court records in Washington DC show that Fazlic’s luxury apartment in the US capital was in the process of being seized by Bank JP Morgan Chase, although this lawsuit was suspended “with the consent of the parties” on January 11, which suggests that Fazlic and the Bank have reached a deal.
The 370-square-meter apartment remains advertised for sale for only $ 7 million in several real estate websites in Washington DC. Real estate agents describe it as “overly renovated” with “an amazing redwood library and a summer pantry with air conditioning”.
The Tirana Tax Office also accused Fazlic of tax evasion and imposed a burden of 8,500 euros, meanwhile froze his accounts in the country until the debt was repaid.
Neither Fazlic nor Lazarevic have responded to BIRN’s requests for comment on the various debt trials involved or about the fate of the oil and gas terminal project in Albania.
Otherwise, the Rudnap Group has made the following statement: “The Rudnap Group is in the process of restructuring that involves negotiating with creditors in reconciliation and reconciliation for an acceptable plan.
“All projects are covered by this plan and their further development will be harmonized according to the agreement between the company and its creditors.” /Reporter.al/
