Prague, Jan 21 (CTK) – The Czech Republic has won in Britain a suit for court costs in the Diag Human case, the Health Ministry said yesterday, adding that the state will obtain an equivalent of 38 million crowns by court order.
The verdict can be appealed. The Czech Republic will not do it. CTK is seeking the firm’s reaction.
“This verdict not only confirms again that the Czech Republic is to pay Diag Human not a crown, and at the same time, the Czech Republic has been admitted a claim to the costs connected with the court proceedings. The court also takes into account for the first time Mr Stava’s personal responsibility,” Health Minister Svatopluk Nemecek said about the verdict.
Businessman Josef Stava is the founder of the Diag Human firm.
The London court admitted Stava was the person that was to fully profit from a possible success in the court dispute.
Diag Human has been suing the Czech Republic for many years over a marred blood plasma deal. The state has claimed since 2014 that it definitely won the arbitration for billions of crowns. The firm does not agree with this and it has challenged the independence of the arbitrators.
It started several lawsuits against the Czech Republic abroad, in which it claims the implementation of the arbitration award from 2008, which ordered the Czech Republic to pay it compensation worth 8.33 billion crowns plus interests.
The Health Ministry claims that courts in the Netherlands, Austria, France, Switzerland and Britain and the U.S. Federal Court in Washington have already decided in favour of the Czech Republic.
Though the award from 2008 ordered the Czech Republic to pay billions of crowns to the firm as compensation, a review arbitration panel issued a ruling halting the arbitration.
The state interprets the ruling as meaning that according to the arbitrators, the matter was decided in 2002 already, when the Czech Republic paid the firm 326 million crowns for damaging its good name, which means that all following decisions, including that from 2008, have no legal effects.
Diag Human’s legal representative Jan Kalvoda said previously further 2008 award recognition proceedings continue in Luxembourg, Belgium and the United States.
($1=24.789 crowns)
