By DPA
Prague : The Czech government is vowing to attempt to smooth over disputes with Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, CTK news agency reported.
“Mittal and I expressed clearly to find a peaceful solution outside of arbitration and courts,” CTK news agency reported Wednesday, citing Czech Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek.
The minister and the tycoon agreed to form an expert team entrusted with negotiating a joint agreement, the news agency cited Kalousek as saying after his Wednesday evening meeting with Mittal in Prague.
Mittal, the world’s fifth richest man according to Forbes magazine, is seeking compensation of 25 billion koruny ($1.3 billion) from the Czech Republic in two arbitration proceedings.
He demands 20 billion koruny for being excluded from a privatisation of Vitkovice Steel manufacturer, currently Russian-owned Evraz Vitkovice Steel.
The tycoon also wants five billion koruny in compensation for a 14 percent share in a steel mill that he added to his metallurgical empire four years ago in the north-eastern Czech city of Ostrava.
The Czech Republic then pledged to transfer the share as a part of the privatisation deal with Mittal.
The shares, currently administered by the finance ministry, are blocked by the state’s legal dispute with a Czech businessman to whom the government had promised a share in the steel mill in the 1990s but then backed out of the deal.