Verdict in the Lancelin case. The court has again confirmed that the disputed claim against ČEPRO does not exist.
16 \ 07 \ 2025
The court has once again dismissed Lancelin's lawsuit, which sought CZK 2.6 billion from ČEPRO. The case is closely linked to the criminal activities of Radovan Krejčíř and Martin Pechan. Previous final judgments were overturned by the Supreme Court in February 2024. In a new, as yet non-final judgment, the Municipal Court in Prague confirmed that the claim was fictitious.
The legal proceedings, which have been ongoing for more than 21 years, have their roots in a lawsuit filed in 2003 by Venturon Investment s.r.o. The legal successor to the original plaintiffs is now the shell company Lancelin, SE, whose lawsuit was again dismissed by the court of first instance in the reopened proceedings, at the third hearing in the case. The state-owned company ČEPRO, a.s. has been represented in the dispute by the law firm PORTOS for a long time.
This is the civil law branch of the case in which Radovan Krejčíř and Martin Pechan were sentenced in 2015 to unconditional prison terms for fraud, specifically for attempting to create a false impression of the existence of a debt, the value of which was estimated by the plaintiff at nearly CZK 2.6 billion without accessories.(excluding interest, procedural costs, and other incidental payments) ).
“Despite the length of the legal proceedings, which have been going on for an incredible 21 years and have accompanied me since my beginnings at ČEPRO, I have never doubted that the lawsuit has no real basis, even despite the Supreme Court’s reversal of the final judgments,” Mgr. Jan Duspěva, CEO of ČEPRO.
“Today’s ruling is not only legally correct, but also a logical outcome of this exceptional case, which goes far beyond the scope of a civil dispute. Few cases of economic crime have been as sophisticated and serious as this one. I therefore consider the dismissal of the lawsuit, although not yet final, to be a significant milestone not only for ČEPRO, but also for law enforcement agencies and the judiciary as a whole.” comments on the ruling Milan Kučera, partner at the PORTOS law firm, who is leading the case.
In her oral reasoning for the judgment, the presiding judge stated that the evidence presented clearly showed that the fuel that BENA was supposed to sell to Venturon Investment in July 2002, according to the lawsuit, had not been in ČEPRO’s storage system for at least several months. In the expert opinion submitted by Lancelin, there were many cases of artificial inflation of fuel revenues on the part of BENA, and therefore the claim did not correspond to reality. The Municipal Court in Prague thus confirmed the previous finding that there was no claim against ČEPRO, a.s.
The courts have already ruled in favor of ČEPRO several times and confirmed that the claim in question is fictitious and never arose. Most recently, the High Court in Prague confirmed the non-existence of the claim in 2021. However, following an appeal by the opposing party, the Supreme Court overturned the original judgments in March 2024 on procedural grounds and referred the case back to the court of first instance for a new hearing.
“Our work on the case does not end here, even though the plaintiff, Lancelin, was dissolved in May 2024 and is currently in liquidation. Moreover, it is essentially a shell company, as it never engaged in any commercial or other activities.” adds Milan Kučera from the PORTOS law firm.
“Given the developments in the proceedings with Lancelin to date, it cannot be expected that today’s ruling will bring the dispute to an end. The final decision will probably be made by the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, this is an important moment in the whole case, not only for ČEPRO, but also for its sole shareholder, the Ministry of Finance. ” concludes CEO Jan Duspěva.
