Grupa Azoty has filed a report with the prosecutor's office regarding a suspected crime involving large-scale damage to the company. The report concerns, among other things, irregularities and illegalities in the functioning of the Polish National Foundation, the company announced on Friday. As explained, “an unconditional commitment was made over a period of 10 years to make total payments of PLN 45.5 million and no guarantee was given to withdraw from financing the foundation.”
Grupa Azoty SA in Tarnów announced on Friday that it had filed a report with the prosecutor's office on suspicion of committing a crime “in the matter of causing damage to the company on a large scale consisting in the establishment of, and actions and omissions concerning, suspected irregularities and illegal functioning of the Polish National Foundation (PFN), using multi-million funds from the company, i.e. an act under Article 296, paragraph 3 of the Penal Code”.
Controversial commitment
“In the coming days and weeks, we will take similar actions in other areas,” announced Grupa Azoty CEO Adam Leszkiewicz in a statement.
“In the case of the Polish National Foundation, it is striking that when it was established in 2016, an unconditional commitment was made over a period of 10 years to make total payments of PLN 45.5 million and there was no guarantee of the possibility of withdrawing from financing the foundation, even if the company's financial situation deteriorated,” he noted.
“Importantly, despite the record levels of losses reported by the Company in the last 6 quarters, no attempt was made to withdraw the financing, and information about cases of mismanagement in the spending of PFN funds was available in the public sphere. The Company engaged in a long-term and multi-million de facto sponsorship initiative, declaring funds for PFN operations, despite the fact that this legal form does not essentially serve sponsorship purposes for business entities,” he added.
The statement also indicated that in August this year, the Management Board of Grupa Azoty adopted a resolution authorizing the representative of Grupa Azoty on the Council of the Polish National Foundation to present the company's position to the Foundation Council regarding the change in the voluntary nature of payments for 2024 and 2025 to the Polish National Foundation and to take steps to liquidate the Foundation.
Nitrogen Plant “Puławy”Wojtek Jargiło/PAP
Leszkiewicz reported that the first period of analysis of activities and management in recent years is “slowly coming to an end” in the companies of the Grupa Azoty Capital Group. “This is particularly important in the context of the financial situation in which the Group has found itself since the second half of 2022,” the president of the Grupa Azoty Group, Adam Leszkiewicz, pointed out in a statement. He added that the “difficult situation” means that the management board has a “special obligation” to respond to any identified activities for which there is a suspicion of a crime.
Grupa Azoty is the largest producer on the domestic fertilizer market and one of the key capital groups in the fertilizer and chemical industry in Europe. It ranks second in the European Union in the production of nitrogen and multi-component fertilizers, and also has a strong position in the markets for products such as melamine, polyamide, OXO alcohols, plasticizers and titanium white.
Polish National Foundation
Polish National Foundation was established at the turn of 2016 and 2017. Its goal is, among others, to promote and protect the image of Poland in the country and abroad. The State Treasury companies, the seventeen founders who established PFN, transferred several hundred million złoty there.
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the foundation. Back in 2017, the foundation financed the campaign “Fair Courts” at the government's request, which was to show “the abuses of the judicial caste” and the need to reform the justice system. This was certainly in line with the actions of the United Right government, which was working at the time on amending the acts on the National Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Court.
The foundation also became famous for buying a yacht for almost a million euros. It was named “I love Poland”. Painted in the national colors, the yacht was supposed to advertise the country by calling at world ports. Not much came of it, and the yacht was sold, as was first reported in February this year by “Gazeta Wyborcza”.
READ MORE ABOUT THE POLISH NATIONAL FOUNDATION: Some companies transfer millions, others refuse. What's next for the Polish National Foundation? >>>
Main image source: Grupa Azoty/ Sławomir Kłak