Orlen is set to hold a press conference tomorrow to describe its strategy for the coming decade and (commentators assume) boast about the company's successes under CEO Daniel Obajtek and his Law and Justice nominated board.
However, the sense of scandal surrounding Orlen has been growing in recent days with several serious questions raised about the company's operations. The following are (currently) the most serious.
1. The claim that the Lotos company - a smaller petroleum company previously acquired by Orlen - was undervalued at its sale by at least 4 billion PLN. Warsaw University Professor of Law Michał Romanowski and other experts have also questioned a clause in the contract of sale to the Saudi company Aramco - a contractual penalty of 500 million USD (2.2 billion PLN). The penalty is roughly double the sale price (1.1 billion PLN). The sale of Lotos has struck several experts as acting against the interest of the company and has sparked the prosecutor's investigation launched today.
The Orlen board and the government - indeed party chair Jarosław Kaczyński has been accused of personally overseeing the sale of Lotos - have been criticised for circumventing regulators. Regulators, who normally should have signed off on the sale, were avoided by exploiting COVID-based legal loopholes.
2. In view of Saudi Arabia's draconian political system and its friendly relations with Russia, the sale of an energy company under worldwide sanctions against Russia is at best of questionable ethics and against the spirit of international efforts to isolate Russia - as well in direct contradiction to Poland's stated foreign policy.
3. The "miracle at the petrol stations" - Polish petrol prices dropped in 2023 just before the October general elections, just as petrol prices in neighbouring countries were rising. This situation has aroused the suspicion of experts. This "miracle" is to be investigated by the Supreme Audit Office (NIK).
Commentators criticise artificial pricing by Orlen - at different times for party political gains and for profit:
4. Daniel Obajtek has been personally criticised for - not limiting or even denying but - celebrating his support for the Law and Justice party. This has been described as at the least "violating standards of good governance".
5. The purchase of the press owner Polska Press has been widely described as an integral part of Law and Justice's (PiS) political marketing - purchasing political influence over local media outlets both directly by the sale and then on an ongoing basis through the purchase of lucrative ad space.
In an Oedipal twist of fate, lawyers have pointed out that thanks to the harsher punishments included in Law and Justice's own criminal code reform, CEO Daniel Obajtek faces a maximum potential punishment of 25 years in prison - as opposed to the maximum of 10 years he would have previously faced for economic crimes.
The changes which came into effect in October 2023 envisage a maximum of 25 years in prison where the damage to the company exceeds 10 million PLN, a figure much lower than the 4 billion PLN talked about with reference to the Lotos sale.
Sources: wp.pl, money.pl, wyborcza.pl, oko.press, Rzeczpospolita
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