Greece Probes Macedonia Highway Bribery Claim

Greece has launched a "preliminary investigation for foreign bribery and money laundering" allegedly committed by AKTOR AD? in neighbouring Macedonia, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, said in its latest Report on Implementation of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in Greece.

The report published this month says that "a Greek construction company allegedly offered a bribe to FYROM [Macedonia's provisional name in the UN] officials to obtain a 270 euro million contract for construction of a highway in that country" and that a preliminary investigation in Greece is ongoing.

The OECD says that Greece was made aware of the allegations by media articles handed to Athens officials in May 2014, one of which was published by BIRN.

The highway at the focus of the probe is a 28-kilometre stretch from Demir Kapija to Smokvica in Macedonia, part of the pan-European Corridor 10. The construction of the road began in September 2012 after AKTOR AD? Greece won the contract.

"The Greek company won the contract even though its offer was significantly higher (by 40 million euro) than those of its competitors. The subsidiary of the Greek company in FYROM and Greek individuals are implicated," the OECD report said.

The report further reveals that in June last year, Greek authorities requested assistance from their Macedonian counterparts but never received a response.

"While waiting for the response for the [Mutual Legal Assistance] MLA request, the Greek authorities contacted their counterparts in Eurojust to facilitate the request," it said. 
Eurojust is a Hague-based agency of the European Union dealing with judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

The AKTOR affair erupted in March...