Podgorica, (MINA-BUSINESS) – Power companies behave as if they are a separate branch of government when they respect neither the judicial nor the legislative authorities, and evidently not even the basic laws of physics on which their technical functioning is based, said Zeljko Medojevic, owner of the former Podgorica-based company Kvadrat Komerc.

After 13 years of litigation with EPCG and the Montenegrin Electricity Distribution System (CEDIS), he stated that what is now being presented as a subject of a media campaign had already been examined in court, including expert analyses by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, as well as findings by a commission of experts hired by the energy companies.

“EPCG must eliminate patterns of irresponsibility, legal uncertainty, and resistance to real change if it wants to provide citizens and businesses with good and reliable electricity supply,” Medojevic said in response to what he described as unusual reporting by certain media outlets, which announced that a case had been opened at the Special State Prosecutor’s Office.

He noted that this is a standard procedure following criminal charges filed by the energy companies against him, as well as against a Basic Court judge, a three-member panel of the Higher Court, and expert witnesses involved in a dispute that was concluded after 13 years.

The Special State Prosecutor’s Office opened a case based on a criminal complaint filed in February by EPCG and CEDIS against several individuals, on suspicion of organized crime related to a court dispute worth around six million euros. The state energy companies filed the charges in connection with a lawsuit brought against them by Medojevic.

They claim that expert witnesses and judges, together with Medojevic, were part of an organized criminal group and that, through proceedings in which Medojevic sought compensation for lost profits due to alleged power outages affecting Kvadrat Komerc, they contributed to decisions that caused multimillion-euro damage to the state companies, estimated at nearly six million euros including interest.