LAWYERS for a Serbian businessman were yesterday considering filing lawsuits against the directors of the Popular Bank and the directors of a defunct company.
Businessman Predrag Djordjevic attempted to ship cotton into Yugoslavia at the height of the Bosnian war in 1994, with a United Nations permit.
Yugoslavia was subject to a strict UN embargo at the time.
Djordjevic claims his Bulgarian trade partner deposited about £180,000 in Deutschmarks into his company account in Belgrade, and that the money was supposed to be transferred to Beogradska Banka in Cyprus.
However, the transfer was mysteriously blocked.
After a long legal wrangle with Beogradska, Djordjevic found his money had been moved into an account with the Popular Bank.
A company he had never heard of, Antexol Trade Ltd, controlled the account.
When the accounts were examined in court, Djordjevic discovered about $300,000 had been transferred to Antexol’s Popular Bank account, which bore the same number as his account with Beogradska.
Djordjevic, who finally received his money too late to save his cotton deal, filed lawsuits against the Popular Bank and Antexol Trade Ltd in June 2000 for £110,000.
Over four years later, the case has still not been heard in court.
And yesterday, just before the hearing, Djordjevic’s lawyers, Christos Clerides and Soteris Drakos, were informed that Antexol Ltd had been stricken off the company registrar’s record in August 29 last year as a defunct company.
Clerides told the court that no one had informed him about the development.
“If I knew I would have taken measures in time,” he said.
Antexol’s lawyer, Marios Eliades, said notification had been given in time.
Clerides countered that he could not understand then, why a court hearing had been set on March 25 this year, when it had been known that the company no longer existed.
Eliades said there had not been any intention to mislead the plaintiff and “categorically rejected” conspiracy claims.
In light of the development, Clerides said the procedure against Antexol should be terminated while the suit against Laiki continued.
He also told the court that he reserved his right to file separate suits against the directors of Antexol and Kikis Lazarides, the chairman of the board of Laiki Bank.
Clerides further requested a few days until they decided on the course of action they would take.
Laiki lawyer Kikis Tallarides said it was not necessary to mention Lazarides’ name and condemned “ the attempt to make impressions”.
Drakos later confirmed that they were considering filing lawsuits against the directors of Antexol Ltd, which was registered by Tassos Papadopoulos’ law office, as well as the directors of Laiki.
Cyprus has consistently been accused of turning a blind eye to Serbian money launderers – something banking authorities on the island have always denied.
Around four years ago, the Sunday Times claimed that Yugoslav companies used Cyprus to launder money syphoned abroad by former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic’s regime.
The paper said investigators at the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control believed as much as $4 billion from the former Yugoslavia could have ended up in Cyprus alone.
The Sunday Times report also claimed American officials were monitoring Djordjevic’s case.
The Americans suspected the case could provide them with clues on the methods used by Milosevic’s money launderers, The Sunday Times said.
