The agreement removed the potential obligation of the state budget in the amount of at least HRK 2.5bn.

Croatia’s Finance Minister, Zdravko Marić, reported that an agreement had been reached with six banks that are conducting proceedings before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, before domestic courts and those that have not yet initiated such proceedings. The banks with which the agreement was reached were ZABA, PBZ, Sberbank, Erste, Raiffeisen and OTP, while the arbitration proceedings were related to the conversion of Swiss Franc loans.

Mr. Marić further added that on the basis of this agreement reached, a suspension occurs immediately in four proceedings, i.e.stopping all proceedings and processes.

The aforementioned agreement removed the potential obligation of the state budget in the amount of at least HRK 2.5bn. So far, Croatia has paid HRK 127m in four cases for the costs of courts, lawyers and experts. With this agreement, all of that stops, that is, there are no more additional actions based on these processes as far as six banks are concerned. For the two banks, the procedures continue, while Mr. Marić stated that the government will continue the dialogue with those banks and endeavour to conclude this type of agreement in the following period.