France’s Dalkia owns Lithuania’s Litesko, which leases Vilniaus Energija (Vilnius Energy), the supplier of district heat in the Lithuanian capital, and the district heating and hot water systems in some other Lithuania’s cities and towns.
“We are strongly committed to comply with local legislation. This is also true about Lithuania, where our subsidiaries, Vilniaus Energija and Litesko, comply with all legal acts, including those governing public procurement. We provide full information to all those public authorities we must provide information to,” he said at a news conference in Vilnius on Friday.
“Hence I am sure that those allegations, which emerged on Thursday, will be proven to be untrue very quickly,” he added.
“I have no doubts that allegations related with the purchase of biofuel, which were put forward against Dalkia’s subsidiary on Thursday, are not actually founded,” Sacreste said in comments issued on Friday.
On Thursday, Lithuania’s law enforcement authorities carried out searches at the offices of Vilniaus Energija and its suppliers of biofuel, including Bionovus.
Such developments were favorable to Finnish-owned Fortum, a competitor of Dalkia, Sacreste said.
“Let’s look at Vilnius. When we proposed to build new biofuel installations in Vilnius so as to resolve all wide-ranging problems and to put forward a comprehensive diversification plan, we were told that our proposal is bad and 500 million litas (EUR 145 m) is too much. When our competitor, which has recently suffered defeat over heating grids in Warsaw – and I mean Fortum – proposed to build a power plant [in Lithuania] and does not speak about compliance with directives, it is very good. ... hence the only explanation could be that we are not welcome as a French investor,” Sacreste said.
He said that he could neither confirm nor deny that there were talks on the sale of Dalkia’s companies ongoing with Fortum.
The Prosecutor General‘s Office said that searches had been carried so as to verify the data of a pre-trial investigation whether the prices for heating supplied by Vilniaus Energija had not been boosted artificially during purchase of fuel for heat generation.
Unofficial sources said that the searches could be related with deals between Vilniaus Energija and Bionovus, a biofuel supply company controlled by Icor.
Fuel burned by Vilniaus Energija mainly includes natural gas it buys from Dujotekana, as well as biofuel, which contributes to generation of about 9 percent of all heating energy in Vilnius. The biofuel is bought from Bionovus.
Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaitė said in early 2012 that Bionovus was monopolizing the crude biofuel supply sector.
Icor is indirectly linked with Vilniaus Energija – Icor's shareholders are the top executives of both Vilniaus Energija and Dalkia Lietuva.
20 searches
Around 20 searches were carried out on Thursday amid suspicions that Vilniaus Energija (Vilnius Energy), a district heating supplier owned by France's Dalkia, artificially increased heating prices through fuel purchases.
"We investigate a possible abuse as well as a possible fraud involving artificial raising of prices through diesel fuel and biofuel purchases," Simonas Slapšinskas, chief prosecutor of the Criminal Prosecution Department at the Prosecutor General's Office, said at a news conference in Vilnius while commenting on the pre-trial investigation involving Vilniaus Energija.
"Around 20 searches were conducted on Thursday," Rūta Dirsienė, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General's Office, told BNS.
She said that no type of fuel was being singled out in the investigation.
The searches were conducted at the offices of Vilniaus Energija, as well as its biofuel suppliers, including Icor-owned Bionovus, Nerijus Mikalajūnas, a spokesman for City Service, confirmed to BNS.
According to the Internet news portal Delfi.lt, among the companies that have caught the attention of the Financial Crime Investigation Service (FCIS) is Lag&d, which is registered in the capital city's Constitution Avenue, where Icor is headquartered.
The Prosecutor General's Office has said that the pre-trial investigation is being conducted based on data collected by the FCIS.
