STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL debts: Slovenia sued the largest Serbian arms exporter | Society and economy

For several years, out of the public eye, there has been a dispute between the Republic of Slovenia and “Jugoimport SDPR”, a state-owned company that is one of the arms exporters from Serbia. According to official records, the lawsuit was filed because of the debt, and the Slovenians are asking for 749,452,754 dinars to be paid.

On the website of the Ministry of Justice, where, along with the number of cases, you can find information about the court proceedings itself, it is written that the amount of the dispute is 7,211,393 dollars, and that the appeal procedure is ongoing. The lawsuit was filed on May 28, 2021.

As the SDPR came to the situation of being sued by the state of Slovenia, journalists tried to find out from several addresses. Nova.rs contacted the lawyer of the plaintiff, i.e. the Republic of Slovenia, Marija Smiljanić Pilčević, but she refused to talk on the subject. They went through the same thing when they called the lawyer Oliver Živković, who represents the SDPR, who also said that he could not speak on that topic.

According to the interlocutor, who is well acquainted with the operations of “Jugoimport”, it is probably an old debt, which originates from the time of the former Yugoslavia.

– It is not the first time that the SDPR has been sued by a former Yugoslav republic. Macedonia did the same. It is probably an old job from the time of the former Yugoslavia, in which SDPR was the project holder and had its own subcontractors. And he probably didn’t pay them, and at least one of them is from Slovenia – says the interlocutor of “Nova”.

“Jugoimport SDPR” was founded in 1949, and over time the production capacities exceeded the domestic market. Today, it employs more than 350 people, and last year the company made a profit of around 5.1 million euros. This is about two million euros more earnings compared to what was achieved in 2022.

And according to official data obtained by “Nova”, Jugoimport SDPR is the company that received the most permits for the export of weapons in the past few years. It is similar with the values ​​of the contracted works, where it is side by side with the company “Prvi Partizan”.

In 2023, SDPR contracted deals worth $263,767,970, and from 2020 to the end of last year, they concluded deals worth more than half a billion dollars.

Strictly confidential export to Israel

Exports to Israel especially increased at the beginning of this year. New Economy announced that exports to the country, which is fighting against Hamas, jumped dramatically in March of this year. As reported, his value that month alone was around 14.09 million euros.

This is a significant increase in Jugoimport’s exports to Israel compared to the previous two in October and February, which BIRN wrote about. That research portal announced that these shipments together were worth “more than a million euros”, and that they were realized after the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023.

BIRN journalists, when they asked the Ministry of Internal and Foreign Trade about the value of the contract, received the answer that information on arms exports to Israel is classified as “top secret”.