The report covered the work of the State Prosecutor's Office in criminal cases referring to ownership transformation and privatisation. State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic presented the report to the parliamentary committee on the judiciary, which took note of it, and sent it to parliament for discussion.
Bajic said the State Audit Office had checked 1,556 companies, that illegal activities had been found in 11.4 per cent, and that charges had been pressed against 4.6 per cent of all audited companies.
The most frequent unlawful activity (40 per cent) was the sale of assets not entered into the corporate capital, followed by the transformation of uncollected claims into share portions (20 per cent).
Mismanagement constituted 60 per cent of unlawful activities.
Bajic said charges had been dropped in 54 per cent of all cases, mainly because the statute of limitations had expired before charges were pressed.
Forty per cent of charges pressed for economic crimes resulted in acquittals, whereas in all other forms of crimes this percentage was seven per cent.
Bajic said these devastating figures were due to the expiry of the statute of limitations or the dropping of charges in a high number of cases, as well as to the fact that the crimes were committed at a time when other laws were in force, mainly taken from the former socialist system.
"I am dissatisfied with the overall effect of prosecutions in cases of ownership transformation and privatisation," Bajic said and members of the parliamentary committee agreed.