Brokerage scandal – Socialists ask Ader not to sign brokerage asset-seizure law

Budapest, April 1 (MTI) – The opposition Socialists asked President Janos Ader on Wednesday to withhold his signature from the law on seizing the assets of brokerages to compensate the victims of brokerage scandals because the law exempts Quaestor’s banking division.

Deputy chairman of parliament’s legislative committee, Gergely Barandy, told a joint press conference held with deputy Socialist group leader Bertalan Toth that under an amendment proposal submitted by the committee, banks will be exempt from the new law and this “saves” Quaestor’s bank from the seizure of its assets.

The amendment proposal was passed on ruling Fidesz’s recommendation, he said.

The police have frozen Quaestor bank’s operations pending a court order, but it is unlikely this can be sustained under the current law, Barandy said.

He accused Fidesz of having hoodwinked the legislative committee, insisting the ruling party’s “pals” must not be allowed “to siphon off” their monies via Quaestor’s bank by taking advantage of the banking exemption under the new law. He added that the Socialists would submit an amendment to scrap the law.

Toth said that at the legislative committee meeting Bence Tuzson of the ruling Fidesz party said the amendment proposal had been submitted because only brokerages are intended to be punished and not banks in general.

The question arises as to whose money is deposited in Quaestor’s bank and where the 18 billion forints (EUR 60m) the foreign ministry received from the taxpayer to carry out a capital increase in Eximbank has disappeared, he said, adding that it was not for an idle reason that Quaestor’s bank had been exempted from the new law.

Answering a question concerning the bank, Toth noted that the National Bank of Hungary had issued a final licence approving its operation on Feb.1 after Quaestor purchased Credigen Bank.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters