You can find Jaroslav Faltýnek’s name on several pages of the History of Corruption, and rightly so. The businessman has long been the number two of the ANO movement, which was founded paradoxically with the inflection of anti-corruption slogans. He had known the movement’s leader and business partner Andrej Babiš for years. And it may be worth recalling the circumstances under which this friendship was forged.
Andrej Babiš also targeted the Tchecomalt Group during his raids on agricultural companies during the growth of his Agrofert. Since the 1990s, the group has brought together 17 companies involved in malting, animal feed and agricultural commodities trading.
Tchecomalt owned the Prostějov malting plants and was supposed to be the intermediary for the former management of Proferta to expand in agriculture. It bought former state-owned cooperatives and warehouses or guaranteed Proferta’s loan with the Investment and Postal Bank with commodities. After the collapse of Proferta and the Investment and Postal Bank, the claim for Proferta’s outstanding loan was transferred to the Czechoslovak Commercial Bank. The latter sought compensation for the outstanding debt from the guarantor, which was Tchecomalt.
In September 2000, the Board of Directors of Tchecomalt decided to declare bankruptcy. It did not take into account the opinion of ČSOB as the only creditor. In the bankruptcy, Agrofert took control of the warehouses and malting plants on favourable terms.
Jaroslav Faltýnek was the vice-chairman of the board of directors of Tchecomalt at that time. Shortly after the bankruptcy purchase of Tchecomalt’s assets, which was profitable for Agrofert, he moved to Agrofert, where he became the head of the agricultural division. Faltýnek denied any intention in declaring the company bankrupt.
ČSOB, however, described Tchecomalt’s bankruptcy as purposeful. The bank saw the former management’s move as an effort to maintain control over its subsidiaries and to prevent the main shareholder and creditor – ČSOB – from gaining access to the company’s shares. The managers defended themselves on the grounds that ČSOB refused to continue to finance the company’s operating loans. Money that had been intended for advances on commodity purchases allegedly disappeared from Tchecomalt’s account, forcing the company to file for bankruptcy.
The bank countered by claiming that it was interested in continuing the company’s business and was prepared to provide sufficient capital for that purpose. Therefore, in 2001, ČSOB filed a criminal complaint against the former management of the company, including Jaroslav Faltýnek. The bankruptcy trustee Pavel Tomčala was also suspected of involvement in the alleged tunnelling of the company and was supposed to have played into Agrofert’s hands. However, the bank was unable to prove its allegations and was left with only a two-billion-dollar outstanding loan to write off.
The business connection between Babiš and Faltýnek has already been marred by criminal charges. And Faltýnek and Babiš will not escape criminal charges in the future.
The criminal suspicions regarding Faltýnek date back to the time when he was the right-hand man No.1 of the politically powerful Babiš. One of the unpleasantnesses was the record of his meeting with the head of Kapsch, which was and is eminently interested in the operation of a highly profitable toll collection system in the Czech Republic. The ministry that bid for the contract and negotiated the terms of cooperation fell under the movement in which Faltýnek was number two. And it is known that Faltýnek’s influence was clear at the Transport Ministry. Among the series of documented meetings in the police archives is also a meeting with the head of the Antimonopoly Office, who had a significant say in the toll contract and is supposed to be completely impartial by principle.
Faltýnek’s name was also invoked by another sad figure in the story of the History of Corruption, Simona Kratochvílová (see 7.12). The Deputy Minister of Education and Sport claimed that Faltýnek had pressured her in an attempt to influence the distribution of sports subsidies. Faltýnek’s role is also described in the chapter on the Stoka case (7.4).
The police also looked into Faltýnek’s activities in the story of the strange purchase of ČD Telematika, where the state did not take the opportunity to buy the company for a quarter of the price, but apparently waited until the price of the transaction rose significantly due to decisions influenced by Faltýnek. The case of influencing contracts for BigBoard is also described in surprisingly specific terms. In short: Faltýnek was supposed to squeeze out the competition at any cost, and he succeeded. There are many similar seemingly small but financially massive influenced contracts associated with Faltýnek’s name.
The suspect himself lied to the police, as well as to the media and anti-corruption activists, using an old-fashioned approach – he kept written records of his contacts and meetings in what could be called a diary. When information about the diary and the notes in it were leaked to the media, Faltýnek downplayed them, saying that the slang words he had jotted down in it did not mean what was obvious, or claiming that some of the planned meetings had not taken place.
In his diary, he made notes about who he was supposed to help with subsidies, which contracts he was supposed to influence and how, or which companies he wanted to secretly take ownership of.
Andrej Babiš’s reaction was interesting. On the surface, he tried to act as if Faltýnek had explained everything to him and that it was in fact only the media’s interpretation. However, it was obvious that his nervousness was rising and that he was aware of the risks that Faltýnek’s cases pose for the ANO party. Although for years he had also known, tolerated and covered up his peripeteia, Faltýnek had now become toxic, which eventually led to his gradual departure from public office and the leadership of ANO. It is obvious who decided this. ANO is a highly autocratic party, where everything depends on the decision or mood of the chairman and founder of the party.
However, as it turns out at the time of writing, Faltýnek has so far also played into the hands of his diary and influence meetings. He remains an active lobbyist and meets not only with ANO politicians, but also with SPD, ČSSD, ODS and STAN politicians. He continues to meet regularly with a number of heads of authorities and prestigious institutions, but also with representatives of the security forces and with businessmen from large state-supported concerns and financiers. The co-founder of Penta is roasted by him and repeatedly awards his paintings (yes, Faltýnek is an amateur painter) with purchases of hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars (we leave the degree of smirking to the readers). The artist, as well as the art lover in this case, have repeatedly denied that this was buying Faltýnek’s favour.
More than the cost of lawyers and the sweat on the politician and lobbyist’s brow, the numerous police investigations into his person have so far not led to more, the most serious of which is probably the suspicion of rigging the toll tender.
