Vrcovice, South Bohemia, Dec 4 (CTK) – The shareholders of the AGPI firm approved the transfer of its pig farm in Lety, situated at the site of a former WW2 labour camp for the Roma, to the Czech state at its general meeting on Monday, but a minority shareholder’s lawyer is likely to challenge it, he has told CTK.
Lawyer Jan Valek, representing AGPI minority shareholder Petr Vrba, told CTK that he would probably file a legal complaint against Monday’s decision by the general meeting within 30 days.
A total of 92.4 percent of shareholders attended the general meeting in Vrcovice of whom 89.16 percent voted for the transfer and 10.84 percent were against it.
The Agropodnik Tabor shareholder asked for convoking the general meeting, AGPI board deputy chairman Jan Cech said.
The government signed the purchasing contract with the AGPI firm in November. The state is to pay 450.8 million for the complex in Lety, south Bohemia, including the plot, to the firm by the end of April 2018.
Moreover, the state plans to spend another 120 million crowns on the clean-up of the area and other adjustments, such as the construction of a commemorative place.
After paying taxes, the firm should have 372 million crowns left from the purchasing price, Cech said.
The purchasing price includes a compensation for the lost profit, Cech said, adding that the firm is considering spending a part of the sum on the expansion of its production capacities and another part on its loan payment.
The outgoing government of the Social Democrats (CSSD), ANO and Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), which tendered its resignation last week, approved the purchase of the pig farm in August and declassified the contract in October.
According to the general meeting’s decision, the contract of purchase will take effect on February 15, 2018 and the due date is October 31, 2018 at the latest.
The actual buyer is the Roma Culture Museum that signed the contract.
The pig farm operation is to gradually shut down. Pigs are being sent to a slaughterhouse.
The construction of the Lety pig farm started under the communist regime in 1972. The current complex on a 7.1-hectare includes 13 halls with 13,000 pigs in total. The firm installed new technologies in a half of the halls in 2013-2015.
The forced labour camp in Lety was opened in 1940. A similar facility existed in Hodonin u Kunstatu, south Moravia. In 1942, both facilities turned into internment camps and in August of the same year, Roma camps were established there.
Until May 1943, 1308 Roma men, women and children were interned there, 327 of whom perished in the camp and over 500 were sent to the extermination camp in Auschwitz where most of them died. According to estimates, the Nazis murdered 90 percent of Czech Roma people.
