The Vilnius Regional Court, having examined a criminal case in which a representative of a Polish joint-stock company was charged with bribery, found the individual guilty of bribery and imposed a fine of EUR 100,000.
In the criminal case referred to the court by the Department for Organised Crime and Corruption Investigation of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the individual was charged with giving a bribe to a person equivalent to a civil servant – a project manager at UAB Enefit Green – in exchange for favourable treatment of both the company he represented and himself personally in a wind farm construction project, approval of additional works in connection with the construction of the wind turbines, access to confidential internal company information, and preferential treatment in future projects implemented by UAB Enefit Green.
The pre-trial investigation, conducted by the Special Investigation Service (STT), was launched after UAB Enefit Green, the Lithuanian subsidiary of the Estonian state-owned company Enefit Green AS, reported suspected bribery to the STT in connection with the procurement of wind farm construction works.
The evidence gathered during the investigation provided reasonable grounds to believe that, between August and October 2023, a Polish national, acting as a representative of a Polish company operating in the wind farm construction sector, initiated several meetings with an Enefit Green project manager. During these meetings, he offered the project manager a bribe of EUR 100,000 in exchange for ensuring that the company he represented, which had participated in a tender for the construction of wind farms in the Kelmė district and submitted a commercial bid worth more than EUR 100 million, would be selected as the successful bidder.
The evidence gathered during the pre-trial investigation also gave grounds to suspect that, during a visit to the UAB Enefit Green office in September, the accused met with the aforementioned Enefit Green project manager and handed him a biscuit box in which EUR 5,000 was subsequently found
The charges relating to the offer of a bribe and the payment of part of it were supported by statements made by the accused and witnesses, audio recordings, notes found during searches, data recovered from seized mobile phones and computers, and other material gathered during the pre-trial investigation. The accused pleaded not guilty
In order to investigate the suspected foreign bribery case and gather all relevant evidence concerning the alleged criminal offence, Lithuanian, Estonian and Polish law enforcement authorities cooperated closely throughout the pre-trial investigation.
In accordance with the principle of the presumption of innocence, a person is considered innocent until proven guilty by a final court judgment.
