Vladimír Sitta mladší
NFPK Prize for Courage 2013 - 264 000 CZK
Theft of evidence and paper mill in line with court ruling
They refused to take part in the stripping of assets of the Prague Transport Company and lost their family firm. Vladimír Sitta Jr. has pointed ever since July 2009 to shady dealings in the company Neograph, originally founded by his father and grandfather. However, police failed to take radical steps and when the case went public, a co-owner expelled Sitta from the company management.
Four generations of the family of its youngest prodigy, Vladimír Sitta (born 1981), have cherished production of paper as a time-honoured tradition. He worked his way from junior positions to that of commercial director and member of the board. After the firm’s hostile takeover by Jan Janků, holder of 50 percent of the shares, assisted by companions from Šachta & Partners Attorneys-at-Law, he was fired from his posts on 16 December 2011, even though under his baton the company reported steady growth, was profitable and had entered many new markets, including several out of Europe. Because of his expertise, Vladimír Sitta had become the only court-sworn expert on paper production in the Czech Republic.
Janků joined the company in 2003 after purchasing a 50-percent stake of Vladimír Sitta’s grandfather in the firm Neograph, which was flooded in 2002 and insurers refused to pay compensations for the damages. In 2006 Janků disclosed his ambition to sell transport fare documents to the Prague Transport Company (DPP) because of a “good situation” in the Prague City Council and the influence of one Ivo Rittig. One year later, Martin Dvořák was appointed general director of the DPP and before the end of the year Janků signed a contract with a Virgin Islands-based company on commissions from the sale of travel documents (tickets) to the DPP (the case of “Overpriced Tickets for Prague Transport Company”).
ŠACHTA & PARTNERS (now known as MSB Legal) prepared a framework contract with the DPP on the delivery of tickets, which Janků signed in January 2008. The prints for Neograph were supplied by Státní tiskárna cenin, a national securities printing house, whose general director, Richard Bulíček, obtained several valuable gifts from Janků, as we have recently learned from the media.
However, the said contract for commissions and Jan Janků did not appear in the Neograph books until mid-2009. Millions of crowns started to be invoiced by the company from the Virgin Islands. Since autumn 2009 Vladimír Sitta was gathering relevant evidence (contracts and invoice copies), which he presented to Anticorruption Police (ÚOKFK) in January 2010.
But until summer 2011 the ÚOKFK remained inactive and in July of that year Vladimír Sitta alerted the public to counterfeit tickets being officially distributed to DPP by the company Cross Point. Vladimír Sitta reacted to intimidation from the DPP by filing a suit in October 2011 in protection of his person with the Prague City Court.
Asset stripping in the DPP was the focus of a press conference called by the Anticorruption Endowment on 6 December 2011. One week later the Prague City Court issued a ruling concerning the appointment of new members of the Neograph board. The court never checked the claims by the plaintiff, Jan Janků that Neograph had no working management although it was a party to litigation conducted by the same court. Vladimír Sitta and his father were stripped of any participation in the company, and Jan Janků and related persons were appointed to its board. On 16 December 2011 the company Neograph was subjected to hostile takeover by Jan Janků.
Under the “expert guidance” of a management consisting of Jan Janků et al, trustworthy sources report economic results which dramatically differ from the times of the Sitta family.
Anticorruption police during 2013 launched criminal proceedings against Jan Janků, Peter Kmeť, Martin Dvořák and other persons in connection with DPP tickets and other DPP cases (such as Cross Point).
