Founding members of the private equity group J&T Ivan Jakabovic and Patrik Tkac reacted to allegations that thanks to their contacts with Finance Minister Jan Pociatek, their financial group earned huge gains in connection with the change of the central parity of the Slovak currency toward the euro in the ERM 2 system on May 28. They accused Prime Minister and SMER-SD leader Robert Fico, opposition Slovak Democratic and Christian Union-Democratic Party (SDKU-DS) deputy Ivan Miklos and other representatives of these parties from drawing J&T into disputes with the aim of defending their own interests. "Their only interest is to get greater voter support. This would be all right, however, they are doing this at the expense of J&T", said Patrik Tkac. J&T representatives do not like the fact that Mr. Miklos released unofficial information from trading, which may even be subject to bank secrecy. Moreover, they do not like the prime minister's statements about how Cabinet members should behave toward financial groups and that it is immoral to meet with financial groups.
"This means that, if state assets are privatized, J&T will be immediately disqualified due the atmosphere that has been created. Moreover, in this way it would seem to be unacceptable and wrong for the government to cooperate with J&T also on the Tatras project, which means that it is wrong to develop the Tatras," said Patrik Tkac.
J&T founding members supported the finance minister and protested efforts to recall him. Ivan Jakabovic said that J&T partners meet with ministers, which is absolutely standard. They argued that they have to discuss some matters in advance, in order to evaluate the potential risks of a project and to find out whether investment activity may be successful for J&T.
J&T refutes allegations that they abused information in trading on the FOREX market on May 28, prior to the determination of the new central parity. They claim that they were inspired by statements of Prime Minister Robert Fico and the Governor of the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), Ivan Sramko. They pointed out that the government was in favor of a conversion rate as strong as possible and the central bank did not protest these plans. That is why J&T tried to purchase volumes as big as possible, taking into consideration that the new central parity would be at strong levels. "It would have been nonsense not to earn money on those governmental statements," they said. They expected that the central parity would be changed on Friday, similarly as in other cases, which had been more or less anticipated already one week in advance. The increase in the volume of trading resulted from the fact that foreign banks were willing to sell the Slovak crown, as opposed to other trading days, when it was a problem to purchase even small amounts.
Suspicions of a potential information leak concerning the change in the central parity started to appear based on significant trading activity on the Slovak FOREX market on May 28. Opposition deputy Ivan Miklos accused J&T and Istrokapital of profiting from these transactions. In connection with this, information came to light that Finance Minister Jan Pociatek visited J&T's yacht in Monaco a few days before the central parity's change.