Youtube video channel of AS Ventbunkers published this video – with the chairman of the supervisory board – Dr. Rudolf Meroni – speaking.
Youtube abstract:
In this video Dr. Rudolf Meroni, the chairman of the supervisory board
of AS Ventbunkers explains how he was appointed a caretaker for the
shares of the Lembergs family in the Ventspils oil transit business.
Dr. Rudolf Meroni also explains the relation between AS Ventbunkers,
Latvija naftas tranzits, Ventspils Commercial Port und Kalia Parks.
Question:
Your influence in the Ventspils transit business:
– what is your role?
– what is the historical backgroud?
How and why did the court decide to make you the most influential person
in the transit business?
I understand that you control the majority of the shares in Ventspils largest companies.
Which are they?
Answer:
In 2007 the criminal investigation against Aivars Lembergs
had reached a point where the general prosecutors office
of Latvia decided that certain of the international assets
which are said to belong to Mr. Lembergs should be arrested,
should be attached by legal procedures.
In that period of time when the prosecutors office decided
to make such an attachment they asked me wether I would be
ready to act as a custodian – a custodian with a role
to actively control the handling of these assets and also
to excercise the voting rights related to these potentially
attached assets.
I agreed that I would possibly do that, based on the knowledge
I had and based on the role I already had in the various
companies. I seemed to be one of the persons who understood
what these investments were. So I accepted this task and in
December 2007 the general prosecutors office of the Republic
of Latvia arrested most assets which they considered to
belong to the Lembergs family.
They gave me the task to be the administrator – or better to say
the custodian – to watch after the wellbeing of these investments.
Since then I have such a role, mostly in the company Ventbunkers
but also in the Ventbunkers daughter company Latvija naftas tranzits,
that is in the oil transit business.
I had a similar role also in the Ventspils Commercial Port which
is handling dry cargo and also in Kalia Parks which is handling
potash on a large scale and which is one of the largest potash
terminals in the baltic sea region, and various other companies
which are controlled by these groups.
So, this made me a person with a certain saying in these companies
and I have tried since then to establish a system that these companies
are run on a perfectly clean basis, that the employees actually have
real management roles whereas in the past sometimes in some of the
Ventspils companies the business was run by some hidden shareholders
and the actual management had sometimes a rather restricted role.
So my perspective of the Ventspils transit business is that the
companies should be run by professional managers with good
international language skills, with good business knowledge
and that these managers should have an active role in the business
and take actual decisions always guided by the respective
supervisory boards which are supervising the actual working and
the function of the operation of these transit business companies.
Speaker: Dr. Rudolf Meroni for AS Ventbunkers.
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