ZAGREB, November 7, 2018 - According to unofficial information in Croatian media, the founder of the ailing Agrokor conglomerate, Ivica Todorić, should arrive in Zagreb from London at 8 p.m. on Wednesday after a UK court granted Croatia's request for his extradition on October 25.

Todorić, his two sons Ivan and Ante and 12 Agrokor executives and auditors are under investigation for illegally acquiring more than one billion kuna. Only Todorić was ordered to be placed in detention, so as soon as he lands, he should be taken to prison.

Detention was ordered to prevent him from tampering with witnesses. Only one witness has not been questioned in the investigation launched last year.

For more on the Agrokor affair, click here.

In case you didn't know, Martina Dalic, the former deputy prime minister who spent a long time at Andrej Plenkovic's side, left her position earlier this year amid not only the Hotmail affair, in which she was sending highly sensitive emails via no less than Hotmail, but amid growing suspicion surrounding her in regard to the very messy Agrokor affair.

Now, despite the public's general opinion of her being less than sparkling and with all sorts of unsavoury suspicions and accusations about her involvement in Agrokor still flying around, left unanswered, Martina Dalic went ahead and published a book on Agrokor, causing raised eyebrows among many politicians, including MOST's leader Bozo Petrov, who was heavily involved in the Agrokor situation when it first came to light, especially given the fact that the crisis saw the former HDZ-MOST coalition collapse.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Tomislav Pili writes on the 30th of October, 2018, Finance Minister Zdravko Maric, who felt the very personal unpleasantness of the Agrokor crisis on his own skin, stated quite bluntly that he didn't have any desire to comment on whether or not Martina Dalic should return to the government at all.

Marić used to work for Agrokor before taking up his position within the Croatian Government, this caused a lot of suspicion around him, too, as many across the political spectrum and in the general public failed to believe that he had no knowledge of the plethora of underhand deals and the threatening collapse of the company that eventually raised its ugly head in the spring of 2017. Despite the controversy, Maric stuck to his guns and held onto his position, with the situation eventually blowing over. Despite that, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that he'd prefer to avoid discussing Martina Dalic or her new book.

"I've got a good relationship with all the people I've worked with and am working with now, and if we have some disagreement, then we find a common language," the finance minister said briefly.

''I haven't read Martina Dalic's book and I don't know if I'll manage to,'' Maric added at the margins of Poslovni Dnevnik's conference. In response to a journalist's question as to whether everything worked well in regard to Agrokor's extraordinary administration, and why Martina Dalic had to leave, Maric expressed his lack of desire to comment on whether or not she should return to the government.

As for the dangers the Uljanik shipyard situation represents towards public debt, Maric said Uljanik's influence will of course have an effect on the overall fiscal policy outcome for this year.

"The only good thing about it is that it will have a one-off effect. From our side, we intend to solve [the situation] as soon as possible so as to avoid any further consequences. Nevertheless, by the end of the year, according to our projections and expectations, public debt will continue to decline,'' Maric emphasised.

"With regard to taking further steps, we can't influence the worsening global environment that much, but do we have certain mechanisms in our hands. I, as finance minister, am responsible for implementing fiscal policy. All we propose is a responsible, rational fiscal policy that suits all of the challenges we're facing. We're putting emphasis on a more stable public debt, but the basic idea of us all should be ​​economic growth, which will lead to stronger employment growth,'' Maric noted.

Journalists present at the conference in were also very interested in the disappearance of the so-called "mantra" about budget savings which has been being talking about a lot over recent years.

"I wouldn't say that is stopped. If you look at the structure of the expenditure side of the budget, the biggest item is the retirement expenditure. It's true that the issue of expenditure has been challenged more than once and we must not give up on that. We reduced interest costs by over two billion kuna, but we're still paying too much,'' Maric said.

Regarding retirement, the question of whether or not retirement benefits in the new Law on Croatian Defenders represent a budgetary burden arose, to which Maric responded that his ministry had looked into potential financial implications during the process of the adoption of the naw Law on Croatian Defenders.

"The Law on Croatian Defenders is fiscally viable and isn't an additional burden for the budget," Maric concluded.

Want to find out more about what exactly happened within Agrokor and learn more about Martina Dalic's role within it all? Click here and follow the news on Dalić, the Hotmail affair, the writing of Lex Agrokor, and more.

Click here for the original article by Tomislav Pili for Poslovni Dnevnik

The Ivica Todorić latest... Although the High Court in London refused the former Agrokor boss' appeal and confirmed that it was indeed now time for him to return to Croatia, there is another possible remedy to his situation: a request for appeal to the Supreme Court. It ain't over til the fat lady sings, as they say in Ole' Blighty.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 26th of October, 2018, despite being very much under the watchful eye of the Metropolitan police, Ivica Todorić is still at relative liberty in the British capital. After the High Court refused his appeal and confirmed his extradition to Croatia, it doesn't necessarily mean we've come to the very end of the line. Let us not pretend that the chances of him managing to slither out of this situation are great, they aren't, the possibilities of success in him submitting an appeal to the Supreme Court are extremely narrow. Such a move could only really ''take off'' if his rights have been somehow violated, for example, as N1 reports.

Jadranka Sloković, Ivica Todorić's attorney, says she doesn't know whether or not Todorić will decide to attempt to go down that route.

"That's not my decision," she stated simply. It appears also that nobody is quite sure when Todorić will have to return to Croatia at all.

"I don't know exactly when those deadlines are, and according to what I've heard from his English lawyers, it can take about three to four weeks, a maximum of four weeks. Even if he was to go along with this appeal and it ends up getting rejected, it's about four weeks,'' noted Sloković.

Paperwork and red tape will be, as usual, the main hold up should there be any delays in the upcoming process. The transfer from London, where Todorić has been living for about a year, back to Zagreb, needs to be very carefully arranged by the police in Zagreb and in London, as well dealing with who will accompany him on what will likely be a very regular flight from England to Croatia.

"That's all their thing, and as you know, these processes aren't public so we can't talk about them," stated Davor Božinović, the current Croatian Minister of the Interior.

Back in Croatia in Remetinec (Zagreb prison), a decision on the appeal has been being awaited, and a witness who is apparently currently not in Croatia should be questioned.

Todorić's defense thinks that that one witness in question poses no reason for Todorić to be held in custody, but the Zagreb County State Attorney's Office is sticking to its guns. The real question is does it actually make any sense.

"I don't think that it's likely to be for this reason alone, even the court in London has allowed him (Todorić) to remain at liberty with precautionary measures in place," said Aleksandar Maršavelski, a professor of law at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb.

While the Zagreb State Attorney's Office continues investigating, it has, at least currently, revealed absolutely nothing about its plans regarding this issue.

In addition to the questioning of various witnesses, an ongoing accounting audit should be carried out within the scope of the investigation - this will apparently be carried out by a Polish company. Involved attorneys are not particularly pleased with this because they believe, among other things, that this will slow the process down even more and increase costs. They aren't sure it will even be completed on time.

Fran Olujić, Ante Todorić's lawyer stated that he has serious doubts that such an examination can be carried out and completed in the time given, which is a mere three months.

The Agrokor case which rocked Croatia has been being led against Todorić and numerous others who once made up the gigantic company's former management body for an entire year.

Follow the latest news about the former Agrokor supremo here.

ZAGREB, October 25, 2018 - Justice Minister Dražen Bošnjaković said on Thursday it was not known exactly when the UK would extradite Agrokor founder Ivica Todorić to Croatia but that the Croatian Government  would make it happen in the shortest time possible.

With his extradition now confirmed and looming, the former Agrokor boss still isn't giving up. The latest from Ivica Todorić.

ZAGREB, October 25, 2018 - The founder of the Agrokor food and retail conglomerate, Ivica Todorić, will be extradited to Croatia, British judge Duncan Ouseley ruled on Thursday.

ZAGREB, October 24, 2018 - London's High Court is expected on Thursday to deliver a final ruling on the right of the founder of the Croatian Agrokor food and retail group, Ivica Todorić, to appeal against the lower-court ruling on his extradition to Croatia.ZAGREB, October 24, 2018 - London's High Court is expected on Thursday to deliver a final ruling on the right of the founder of the Croatian Agrokor food and retail group, Ivica Todorić, to appeal against the lower-court ruling on his extradition to Croatia.

A new business venture for the daughter of the former Agrokor boss?

Agrokor's former main man fights on in the fog of London.

ZAGREB, September 6, 2018 - London's High Court on Thursday postponed until mid-October a hearing at which it is supposed to decide on the handover of businessman Ivica Todorić to Croatia, after lawyer James Hines, who defends the founder of the Croatian retail and food group Agrokor, told the court that the defence team had new evidence.