Business scandals in Lithuania (2017)

This article lists prominent Lithuanian scandals in public procurement, foreign investment, politics and judicial system from year 2017.

Foreign investors

  • In 2016, Lidl bought an abandoned building in the outskirts of Vilnius with intentions to build local headquarters. Soon after the purchase, Lithuanian architectural union (Lietuvos architektų sąjunga) and Lithuania's ministry of culture declared the building ruin to be a national treasure freezing Lidl's plans in the process. There have been speculations and allegations that such actions were a covert attempt to extort bribes. After a public dispute, where Lidl placed formal complaints to various branches of Lithuanian government, including to Lithuania's president, and after several rounds of legal battles, Lidl settled the case out of court in early 2017. In November 2017, Lidl hit an obstacle again, when the government insisted on expropriating a plot of land due to years old alleged misconduct by previous land owner.
  • Lithuanian railway operator "Lietuvos Geležinkeliai" dismantled a 20 km railway shortcut to Latvia, forcing Polish oil company Orlen to take a significantly longer railway route. Latvian government gave a formal complaint and Poland's ambassador got involved in the case. In October of 2017, European Commission fined "Lietuvos Geležinkeliai" 8% of its annual revenue in an antitrust case. In a public statement "Lietuvos Geležinkeliai" admitted wrongdoing, agreed to rebuild the dismantled railway line, but disagreed about the size of European Commission's penalty.
  • In 2017, French company Veolia sued Lithuania in Stockholm arbitration court demanding about 100 million euros in damages. Veolia alleges that Lithuanian government is involved in illegal conduct and that it expropriated Veolia's investments. This is Veolia's second arbitration lawsuit against Lithuania after it sued Lithuania in Washington arbitration court in 2016.
  • „Start Vilnius“, a governmental agency tasked with attracting foreign investment to Lithuania and famous for corruption and shady deal-making gave an attractive plot of land to one of its employees. A year later, "Start Vilnius", handed over a large plot of land in central Vilnius to a private company for 15'000 EUR. As of October 2017, none of the transactions have been stopped and a nine story building is being erected in one of the plots of land.

Public procurement

  • Lithuanian public energy company came under fire for purchasing supplies well above the market prices. As of September of 2017, no charges have been brought against any employees of the company.
  • In 2017, several small breweries sued USAD for illegal monopoly allegedly protected by several government officials. USAD is administrating Lithuanian empty bottle recycling system.
  • Kaunas city council under leadership of A.Kupčinskas, bought an outdoor toilet for 153 thousand EUR when its market price was estimated at 4,5 thousand EUR. This corruption scandal grew in size in 2017, when public servants suspected of corruption were paid 145 thousand EUR in compensations.
  • A scandal broke out when leaked information revealed the Lithuanian military was buying large quantities of kitchen supplies at prices 7-8 times above the market price. The scandal was quoted in all of Lithuania's major newspapers, but as of October 2017, it did not lead to any dismissals or corruption charges.