A court today sentenced Czech-American businessman Milan Gánik and architect Antonín Kant to 7.5 and 6.5 years in prison in the case of subsidy fraud in the construction of the Nupharo Park science and technology park. According to the unconfirmed verdict, the men gave false information in their application for a subsidy, causing nearly CZK 300 million in damage. The verdict requires the men to pay back the money jointly.
According to the court, Gánik and Kanta agreed in March 2010 at the latest on the intention to illegally draw subsidies. They then provided false information in a subsidy application to the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Had they admitted the truth, they would not have received the subsidy.
Nupharo Park in Libouc, Ústí nad Labem region, received the subsidy in 2013. In the summer of 2015, the then Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (ČSSD) came to see the completion of the complex. However, the project went bankrupt, in 2016 Gánik was removed from the management of Nupharo Park and an insolvency petition was filed. In January 2018, the Municipal Court in Prague sent the company into bankruptcy.
“This would undoubtedly have been a unique, viable project capable of both generating profits and contributing to the advancement of science and research, as well as to the development of a region that needed it like a scratching pig,” said Lukáš Slavík, the chairman of the Prague City Court panel. “The main reason for the project’s collapse was that the defendants were involved in it,” he said.
The verdict also includes an eight-year ban on both defendants from acting on the statutory bodies of companies. The men faced up to 10 years in prison. Both have pleaded not guilty.
“We consider the actions of both defendants to be highly undesirable. We have knowledge that during the course of the project they may have committed other crimes that contributed to the collapse of the project. However, this would require further investigation,” the judge said, referring to possible tunnelling that witnesses had spoken about. In relation to Ganik, the judge spoke of “frivolity”, while in relation to the two defendants he spoke of exaggerated ambition, megalomaniac visions and “incredible profiteering to the point of greed”.
The judge also mentioned the “unfortunate political situation”. “A number of evaluators did not recommend the project, but there were political pressures and pressures from the grantor to approve it,” Slavik noted. “If the project had succeeded, no one would have pursued it because there would have been no prosecutor and therefore no judge,” he noted.
The ruling ordered the men to pay CZK 255 million to the Finance Ministry and CZK 45 million to the Industry Ministry.
