Even though the affair with the five secret partners in Dubrovačka Bank has not been completely disentangled, neither by the police or by the courts, Nacional received a sensational document just a few days ago that uncovers a new scandal with the secret partnership agreement. The affair in which the main player is Marinko Filipović, a high official in HSS and the director of the Government Agency for Savings Insurance and Bank Recovery is most likely the largest scandal that occurred in the past three and a half years. It most likely will shake the foundation of the leading coalition and HSS and it could seriously influence the attitude of the voting body and the result of the elections. Nacional has documents that uncover that several members of the current leading nomenclature, first of which is HSS’s high official Marinko Filipović, are connected with former powerful HDZ figures, among others is Stipe Gabrić. Thanks to the secret partnership agreement, the ownership of GP Dubrovnik was decided. In short: Strahimir Filipović, the son of Marinko Filipović, the president of the Supervisory Board at Dubrovačka Bank, the director of the Government Agency for Savings Insurance and Bank Recovery, and high official in HSS, has signed a secret partnership agreement on the division of ownership shares in GP Dubrovnik with Stipe Gabrić Jambo, former HDZ power figure and Neretva’s king of mandarins, and Mirko Obrvan, a controversial businessman in Dubrovnik. The worst part is that this agreement was signed while the owner of GP Dubrovnik was still Dubrovačka Bank.

Marinko Filipović's son, Strahimir, Stipe Gabrić Jambo and Mirko Obrvan are the signees of a secret partnership agreement for the division of ownership shares in GP Dubrovnik Uslugu za pomoć pri dodjeli GP Dubrovnika Obrvanovu Mediatoru naplatili su Filipovići udjelom u poduzeću vrijednim 3 milijuna kunaThe entire case is a bewildering remembrance of the first affair in Dubrovačka Bank in 1998 when Nacional uncovered that the main members of HDZ’s leading structure: Neven Barač, Miroslav Kutle, Zoran Luburić, and Vinko Brnadić, as well as the fifth partner, Ivić Pašalić, signed a secret partnership agreement that was meant to allow them to take over ownership of Dubrovačka Bank. Now in the center of that shameful scandal with Dubrovačka Bank, there is a new secret partnership agreement in which there are both well-known and secret partners. Of course the intention is the same: transfer money from the pockets of tax payers to their own wallets. Again, this situation deals with immorality and illegal operations that can, without a doubt, make the current actors, their political sponsors and parties face the identically disastrous consequences that HDZ dealt with. Not maybe with the police or courts because in Croatia, after scandalous judicial decisions, it cannot be expected, but politically and morally there will be consequences especially if the president of HSS, Zlatko Tomčić, and his coalition partners from the first Dubrovačka Bank affair did not learn their lesson.

The entire case started on 6 and 7 July, when Dubrovačka Bank put an advertisement in Jutarnji List and Dubrovački Vjesnik informing that 93,403 shares of GP Dubrovnik, found in the Bank’s ownership portfolio, would be sold. With the purchase of those shares, the new owner would possess 72.50% of ownership in that company. The price was even determined: 200 kuna per share, with the total amounting to 18,680,600 kuna for all 93,403 shares.

Five companies answered the advertisement in the newspapers: Grapo from Zagreb, Mediator from Dubrovnik, Konel from Čilipi, PMG Ragusa from Dubrovnik, and Jambo from Metković.

Even before the Supervisory Board in Dubrovačka Bank discussed the offers, on 1 August in Zagreb, at the notary office of Ivo Dujmović on Jurišićeva Street, joint owners in Mediator, the company that competed for the purchase of shares in GP Dubrovnik, Stipe Gabrić Jambo and Mirko Obrvan alongside Strahimir Filipović, an employee at Splitska Bank in Metković, signed an Agreement on the foundation of a secret society. This agreement deals with the division of ownership shares in GP Dubrovnik. It was concluded in writing that Strahimir Filipović would be the “secret member’ in the text of the secret agreement. One witness confirmed that Marinko Filipović was present at the signing of the secret partnership agreement.

Even though the Supervisory Board at Dubrovačka Bank had not yet discussed the collected offers, Mirko Obrvan, Stipe Gabrić Jambo and Strahimir and Marinko Filipović had already divided the goods. The secret partnership agreement foresaw that 72.5% of GP Dubrovnik’s shares would be divided equally among three partners and that each individual receive shares worth 6,333,333.33 kuna. In Article 2 of the secret agreement it is precisely stated that Mirko Obrvan and Stipe Gabrić Jambo confirmed that their secret partner, specifically Strahimir Filipović, paid his first installment of 3,166,666.66 kuna on the day that the agreement was signed. The second installment for the same amount will be paid additionally. Even though Obrvan and Gabrić signed the agreement, Nacional affirmed that Strahimir Filipović did not pay the 3,166,666.66 kuna. That amount, on the other hand, was paid by partners Obrvan and Gabrić to Strahimir Filipović for services done by his father, Marinko Filipović. An additional reward was foreseen in Article 4 in which it was specified that the new director of GP Dubrovnik would be the secret partner, Strahimir Filipović. In the agreement, the method in which the partners can disassemble the secret society was also developed, as well as how they regulate their responsibilities to each other, and how they pay rewards. It is written that the agreement was developed in four copies, one of which remained at the notary’s office and the remaining went to each of the members. In the concluding terms in Article 14, a warning is mentioned stating that the agreement is secret and that no member can make it available to the public. The final clause foresees that the agreement will be considered worthless of the partners do not become the owners of GP Dubrovnik.

The agreement came into place quickly because Mediator, with the insistence of Marinko Filipović, received the tender for the purchase of GP Dubrovnik, even though it was not as fast and easy as Marinko Filipović and the secret members had hoped. At the seating of the Supervisory Board of Dubrovačka Bank on 6 August 2001 in which Marinko Filipović was present, alongside other members of the board: Vido Bogdanović, Ivan Šprlje, Tomislav Vuličević and Pave Župan-Rusković, as well as members of the Executive Board at Dubrovačka bank: Vlaho Sutić, Krešimir Krile, Krunoslav Brkljačić and Ivan Borovina, the recommendation by the Executive Board to accept the offer by Mediator was discarded. It was decided that they will once again consider the loan requests by Ragusa and Mediator for the purchase of GP Dubrovnik and then afterwards, they would make the decision. On 17 August 2001, in the heart of annual vacations, an emergency seating was held for the Supervisory Board at Dubrovačka Bank. Even though Ivan Šprlje, the head of the Dubrovnik-Neretva county and member of SDP, further opposed the decision to sell GP Dubrovnik to Mediator, it was overruled. With four supporting votes from Marinko Filipović, Vido Bogdanović, Pave Župan-Rusković and Tomislav Vuličević, GP Dubrovnik was sold and the new owners were Mediator’s Mirko Obrvan and Stipe Gabrić Jambo. Vido Bogdanović, as a member of HSS, became impartial to the opinion of his party members, as well as the Minister of Tourism Pave Župan-Rusković, who were closer to Marinko Filipović, Stipe Gabrić Jambo and Mirko Obrvan then county head Ivan Šprlje.

The confidence that Marinko Filipović had in the decision that Mediator’s Mirko Obrvan and Stipe Gabrić Jambo would win the tender for the purchase of shares in GP Dubrovnik was shown before the Supervisory Board seating on 6 August 2001 because the Decision on the sale of ownership shares in Mediator was signed.

Despite large expectations by partners, the story on the secret partnership agreement is over and just as the affair with Dubrovačka Bank, everything is completely without fame. According to information given to Nacional, Marinko and Strahimir Filipović, who did not have to pay the first installment but were responsible for paying the second, have not done so. A conflict has occurred between the partners: As Obrvan and Gabrić requested that the Filipovićs’ pay the second installment of 3,166,666.66 kuna, Marinko and Strahimir Filipović opposed doing so by convincing the partners that their services are not worth 3,166,666.66 kuna, but 6,333,333.33 kuna. Because of this a conflict has occurred. In November 2001, Obrvan cancelled the agreement on the secret society. After that, Obrvan and Gabrić fixed their relations: Gabrić gave up his shares in Mediator, and Obrvan gave up his in GP Dubrovnik. That is how Obrvan became the 100% owner of Mediator, and Gabrić GP Dubrovnik.

With this, the story of the shameful sale and purchase of GP Dubrovnik would have come to an end if the documents that uncovered these criminal activities were not discovered. The new scandal in Dubrovačka Bank confirmed how disastrous it can be for a society that does not fight against criminals. The insolence of the actors in this affair dared to once again do the same thing that rocked the entire country three years previously. The shameful behavior of Marinko Filipović best shows what happens when someone irresponsibly and easily crosses over criminal operations. If those who were responsible for the first affair in Dubrovačka Bank were charged, then Marinko Filipović’s son Strahimir would never get the idea to develop a partnership agreement so closely resembling the first. Because nothing ever happened to the fifth secret partner, Ivić Pašalić, and because some actors like Vinko Brnadić and Zoran Luburić received enormous wealth earned through immoral operations and the abuse of their then authority, it clearly would not stimulate others to act in similar ways.

Because of this, Zlatko Tomčić and HSS, as well as the leading coalition, depends on whether or not the new affair with Dubrovačka Bank will have the same political and moral consequences that HDZ dealt with after the first affair. There is no doubt that the uncovering of the first scandal with Dubrovačka Bank was the first nail in the coffin in which HDZ and Ivić Pašalić were politically buried after the parliamentary elections on 3 January 2000. If the leading coalition does not react in a satisfactory way, or if Tomčić does not take drastic measures as the president of HSS, the consequences could be equally damaging.

Marinko Filipović

Stipe Gabrić (44) was born in Klada, a village not far from Metković. He completed his degree at the Agronomical University in Zagreb where he later received his Master’s in mandarins. After returning home, he got a job at PIK Neretva from Opuzen, and later transferred to Razvitak in Metković which was one of the most successful companies before 1990 in the former Yugoslavia. With help from political sponsors, mostly Milan Kovač, the then president of the Croatian Fund for Privatization and the president of NO Razvitak, as well as Luko Bebić, he then became the commercial director of Razvitak. Afterwards, he founded his own company, Jambo, which was led by his brother Božo. Stipe Gabrić sold Razvitak through a retail network and approximately 2000 people were left without work. Stipe Gabrić rented the most fertile pieces of land that were owned by Razvitak for his own purposes and then sold his products at two or three times the market price to MORH, with which he became extremely wealthy. There are tens of reports filed against Gabrić for criminal and illegal operations, but most of the charges were dropped because of a lack of evidence. Gabrić is asking for approximately 400 million kuna from MORH today.