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Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to you as
the United States legal representative of, Mr. Pašk Kačinari of
Frankopanska 9, Zagreb, Croatia, wholesaler in gold and diamonds, who
has alleged that "ALLIANZ" A.G., Munich, Germany and "UNICREDITO
ITALIANO" S.p.A., Milan, Italy, hereinafter the 'Consortium', has
inflicted damages to him in an amount in excess of $60 million. We
bring this to the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission
due to the enormity of the scandal and its direct effect on
shareholder confidence in major financial insitutions, as well as the
financial impact on US investors and institutions that have direct
financial interests in these above mentioned organizations. One of
these organizations, “ALLIANZ” A.G., Munich, Germany, is listed on the
New York Stock Exchange, which makes this case directly relevant to
U.S. financial markets, especially more so as there is strong material
evidence that the said Consortium, of which ‘ALLIANZ” A.G. is a
member, is misreporting its stock holdings, based on a falsified share
register of a bank it recently acquired.
My client claims that the
said damages came about in such a way that the said Consortium, on
February 15, 2002, performed a stock swap with a group of shareholders
of "Zagrebacka banka" d.d., Zagreb, Croatia (hereafter referred to as
ZABA), in such a way that 20% of the share capital of ZABA was paid
for in cash, while 80% was acquired by way of a stock swap. Upon this
stock swap, the previous ZABA shareholders were now recorded as
holders of "New Unicredito shares", while the "ALLIANZ" - "UNICREDITO
ITALIANO" Consortium was now registered as shareholders of ZABA, so
that "ALLIANZ" A.G. was registered as holder of 13.67% ZABA shares,
and "UNICREDITO ITALIANO" as holder of 81.91% of shares, meaning that
the Consortium at that time was registered as owner of 95.58% ZABA
shares.
At that time, the
Consortium did not swap shares with lawful shareholders, as it can be
established that no lawful share register existed at the time of the
said stock swap. Thus, the Consortium took the place of unlawful
owners, and the share register in which the Consortium is listed as
owning 95.58% of shares represents a forgery.
It is also important
to note that, although ZABA is a formerly state-owned bank, the
largest in the Republic of Croatia, there is no record of ZABA ever
having been privatized, as has recently been admitted by Croatia’s
former Privatization Minister. Thus, there is no legal trail by which
a formerly state-owned entity has passed into the hands of private
owners, i.e. the current majority owners, members of the said
Consortium.
A short history of the
transaction is important. On November 13, 1990, my client, in the
capacity of a private investor, signed a contract with ZABA, on the
basis of which ZABA was required to acquire in my client's name a
number of shares directly from its own issuance of stock and register
my client as the shareholder in the shareholder register. The number
of ZABA shares to which my client is entitled totals 164,421.
ZABA did not fulfill this
obligation, instead using the money from the deposit to acquire shares
for another party, or parties. This other party or parties, which
became registered as a shareholder(s) on the basis of my client's
funds, after a period of more than ten years, swapped shares with the
"ALLIANZ"-"UNICREDITO ITALIANO" Consortium, resulting in the present
situation where the Consortium, in place of my client, is registered
as shareholder.
My client claims that
this amounts to a confiscation of his property, underlining that this
took place during the time of a fierce inter-ethnic war in the
Balkans, when confiscations were an everyday occurrence. My client
further claims a contributing factor to this confiscation could be
found in his status of an ethnic Albanian and member of an ethnic
minority in wartime Croatia. Recently other ethnic minorities have
also made similar claims in Croatian courts, including the Austrian
Honorary Counsel in Croatia, a Mr. Georg Gavrilovic, who claims an
illegal conversion of 14,357 original shares of ZABA which would now
total more than 46 million Euros.
During the early 1990s, in the period
immediately preceeding and including the civil war in the former
Yugoslavia, ZABA issued an additional 1.010.288 Series I shares
without reporting a capital increase or an issuance of a new series of
shares to Croatia’s regulatory bodies.
It is clear that this was a case of a
subsequent covert issuance of shares, partly financed by my client's
funds. In other words, over 5% of the shares of this mysterious,
covert issuance of shares should have been registered to the name of
my client, Mr. Pašk Kačinari, of the total 2,884,928 shares that ZABA
has issued.
In addition, Mr. Kačinari
presented his case in great detail and has, in the legal proceedings
he has initiated against ZABA in Croatian Courts, provided a total of
58 documents supporting his case and his rights. A website has also
been established to detail this illegal transaction. It provides
interested parties with documentation supporting my client’s claim.
The website is located at
www.zabaraba.com.
This website also features other cases proving that the ZABA share
register is a forgery, including scanned copies of ZABA shares
currently in my client’s possession (http://www.zabaraba.com/proof.html,
which have been “erased” from the current ZABA share register (http://www.zaba.hr/info/abo/Investor/share/listings/Listings.htm),
thus defrauding possibly thousands of legal ZABA shareholders.
To date, neither ZABA nor
it’s formally recorded owners from the "ALLIANZ"-"UNICREDITOITALIANO"
Consortium have ever addressed my client, nor have in any way
responded to these accusations, even at ZABA Annual Shareholder
Assemblies, at which my client’s claims have been presented – and
never denied. The consortium has completey ignored my client's
willingness to settle this matter amicably.
We urge your office to
conduct a complete and thorough investigation of my client’s claim,
not on behalf of our client, but on behalf of shareholders of other
institutions who were directly involved in this scandal, including
KPMG, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and how they helped make it happen,
and how reputable investment banks, Credit Suisse - First Boston and
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DKW), failed to perform due diligence
for their shareholders prior to aquiring an interest in such shares.
We also urge your office to
investigate this case for the purposes of protecting the integrity of
U.S. and other financial markets, as the falsified ZABA share register
compromises the integrity, lawfulness and validity of the shares and
capital of “ALLIANZ” A.G., Munich, Germany, whose shares are traded on
the NYSE, and "UNICREDITO ITALIANO" S.p.A. Milan, Italy, one of
Europe’s largest banking groups, part of whose shares may be currently
or in the future be held by U.S. corporations or citizens. According
to ZABA’s Annual Report for the year 2004, as of December 31, 2004,
ZABA’s total capital equals $11,421,205,655.68, which means that ZABA
participates in the total capital of the “ALLIANZ/UNICREDITO
Consortium in the amount of $10,916,388,365.70.
This capital has no legal shareholders, and, thus, compromises the
share registers of the said Consortium’s members. Finally, as recent
media reports have indicated, during the early 1990s, ZABA served as a
conduit for the laundering of at least $800-900 million of funds that
may be tied to al-Qaeda, some of which may have been used to covertly
and illegally capitalize the bank.
Should your office
require additional information, copies of documentation or wish to
interview my client directly as to these allegations, please contact
me immediately. Thank you in advance for your immediate attention to
this urgent matter.
Very truly yours,
Paul Djurisic
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