Special prosecutors investigating Mareshki for price dumping on fuel market
Bulgaria’s Prosecutor-General’s office confirmed on March 31 that Varna businessman and newly-elected MP, Volya leader Vesselin Mareshki, was under investigation by special prosecutors for alleged price dumping on the fuels market.
Mareshki’s VM Petroleum company is selling fuel for about 30 stotinki a litre cheaper than competitors in the fuel station market.
Earlier on March 31, Bulgaria’s anti-trust regulator, the Competition Protection Commission, said that Mareshki was under investigation for fuel-market dumping.
Bulgarian media reports said that the investigation had begun more than a year ago. Initially, it had been handled by the prosecutor’s office in the Black Sea city of Varna, and then had been transferred to the special prosecutor’s office in Sofia.
The announcement about Mareshki by the CPC came as it told a news conference that it had found no cartel in the fuel retail market in Bulgaria.
Mareshki has declined to comment on the investigation. He told local television station bTV that he would speak on the topic after receiving specific information and after this information had been examined by his lawyers.
The announcement of the investigation came a few days after his Volya party won 12 out of 240 seats in Bulgaria’s new National Assembly.
While this makes Mareshki’s party the smallest out of five parliamentary groups, he also could be a negotiating partner on a potential deal on a coalition government to be headed by GERB leader Boiko Borissov, whose GERB party won the most votes in the parliamentary elections.
Ahead of the elections, it was announced that prosecutors were investigating whether Mareshki had broken the Political Parties Act by simultaneously heading two political parties. He denies wrongdoing.
/Politics
