MG Grupė has paid a fine of 1.1 million euros imposed by the Court of Appeal in a high-profile political corruption case.
“Yesterday we received a letter from the lawyer and a bank statement on the payment of the fine,” Lina Nemeikaitė, spokesperson for Vilnius Regional Court, told BNS.
MG Grupė, one of Lithuania’s biggest manufacturing, trading, real estate and media groups, was fined for bribery and influence peddling. The court’s verdict became final on Wednesday.
The Court of Appeal stated in its judgment that the evidence in the case allows a reasonable conclusion that MG Grupė (formerly MG Baltic) sought favourable decisions in legislation or in other areas significant to it “not only through legal means but also by deliberately using the influence of its board member Raimondas Kurlianskis in the media (and) his connections in various groups of society, including politics, as well as its financial capacity as a large business operating in Lithuania”.
According to the court, the criminal acts caused significant damage to the Lithuanian state and its political system.
The so-called MG Baltic scandal broke out on May 12, 2016, after officers of the Special Investigation Service (STT) searched the home, workplace, and car of the then leader of the Liberal Movement Eligijus Masiulis. During one of the searches, 242,000 euros were found in the politician’s possession.
The prosecutor then revealed that Masiulis may have received a bribe from Kurlianskis, vice-president of MG Baltic. On the same day, Kurlianskis was detained.
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