This was stated by Koncar management board president Darinko Bago, who called a news conference after the Telecommunications Agency Council decided to grant the operating licence to the Swedish-Croatian company Tele 2.
The news conference was also attended by INA and HEP management boards presidents Tomislav Dragicevic and Ivan Mravak respectively, a director at the French Alcatel company, Gerard Lefant, and the founder of Match Telecom, Bruno Marchisio.
Bago claimed that Match Telecom had never been officially informed or contacted by the Agency with regard to possible problems with bank guarantees, but that it had learned of them from the media.
Despite the fact that the Agency did not contact the company with regard to its bank guarantees, Match Telecom subsequently submitted the original of the bank guarantees to the Agency.
Asked about the problems with bank guarantees, the officials said that there was a difference in the Croatian and English texts of the bank guarantees, which was why the Justice Ministry decided that problems could arise in the possible payment of the guarantees.
The Telecommunications Agency Council today awarded the operating licence for the third mobile operator in Croatia to the Tele 2 company, while the offers of the other two bidders - Match Telecom and Croatia Mobile - were not considered because the initially submitted bidding documents did not contain valid bank guarantees.