New ESR blow to Aktor deals
Greece’s broadcasting watchdog yesterday refused to review its decision to block access to a state contract for a top construction firm due to its ties with a media baron, and also dismissed the same company’s bid to receive clearance for three more state contracts. Earlier yesterday, construction firm Aktor SA’s owner, Leonidas Bobolas, resigned from the company’s board. But Bobolas, son of media baron Giorgos Bobolas, is to remain managing director of the Hellenic Technodomiki group, which Aktor belongs to. The National Broadcasting Council (ESR) explained its decisions by citing laws withholding state contracts from media barons and a lack of evidence of Bobolas’s financial independence from his father. Hellenic Technodomiki said it would go to court over the ESR decisions, which it said were «entirely unjustifiable as there has been no change to the shareholder composition of Aktor, through which the firm has received dozens of certificates over the past years.»
