The appeals court sent three people to prison in the case of the Kuks reconstruction

Prague – The appellate court sent three defendants to prison in the case of a manipulated contract for the reconstruction of the Baroque Kuks complex. Petr Semeniuk will serve a six-year sentence. The main engineer of the reconstruction, Dalibor Dubový, and Zdeněk Fučík from the winning company Gema Art Group will spend two years less behind bars, as the original verdict only imposed a suspended sentence. Fučík must also pay a financial penalty of 500,000 CZK and Semeniuk 100,000 CZK. Today's ruling is final.

"The defendants created a functional electronic communication channel among themselves. They acted both with the intent to violate legal regulations and demonstrably with the intention of ensuring the success of Gema Company," stated the chairwoman of the appellate panel of the Prague High Court, Jana Kantorová. She emphasized that the criminal activity caused enormous damage exceeding 267 million CZK.

The last defendant, Fučík's subordinate Kateřina Richterová, received a three-year suspended sentence with a maximum probation period of five years. All four defendants were newly found guilty not only of providing an advantage in the award of a public contract but also of damaging the financial interests of the EU.

The contract "Kuks – Pomegranate, Hospital – revitalization of restoration" cost more than 322 million CZK, of which over 314 million was financed by the European Union. The tender was won in 2013 by the Hochtief.CZ – Gema Art Group association.

Semeniuk took advantage of his acquaintance with the then-employee of the National Heritage Institute, Dubový, who was also the vice-chairman of the evaluation committee for the tender. Between 2011 and 2012, Dubový sent him internal information via email regarding the drafting of the tender conditions. He then forwarded this information, for selfish reasons, to Gema's statutory director Fučík and to a member of the company's supervisory board, Richterová.

In this way, Gema gained advance access to the bidding documents and the proposed contract for work and influenced the documents through Semeniuk to suit their interests as much as possible. The acquired information was then used to create the winning bid.

According to the ruling, Fučík promised Semeniuk a reward for securing victory in the tender. However, Gema subsequently refused to pay the man, and Semeniuk therefore manufactured a fake promissory note, which he later presented as genuine to another company. That company submitted it to court, which led the police to start investigating the entire matter.

It was not proven in court that the second company from the winning consortium, Hochtief, was involved in the criminal activity in any way. Likewise, there is no evidence that Dubový was motivated by selfish interests in his actions. The main engineer of the reconstruction testified that he did not understand the issues of public procurement at all. For that reason, according to his own words, he accepted the offered help from his acquaintance Semeniuk.

"I object to the claim that the contract was manipulated in such a way as to target a single supplier. I was subject to triple or even quadruple scrutiny. Even if I had a malicious intent, it simply wouldn't have worked," Dubový stated today before the appellate panel.

The Ministry of Finance sought damages from the four accused. However, the courts referred the office to civil proceedings, as they deemed that the damage had not yet materialized – it will arise only when the ministry returns the drawn funds to the EU budget.