Hungary’s National Asset Management Company (MNV) will start talks with the aim to revert a land exchange related with a planned large casino project, MNV said on Wednesday.
MNV spokesman Zsolt Zicherman said MNV is seeking to annul the land contract signed by one of the investors of the casino project after doubts emerged over the equality of the value of land that changed hands in the deal.
The council heading the state asset manager decided unanimously on Wednesday that the MNV CEO should start talks in order to reinstate the original situation and come to a related agreement by November 9.
The Finance Ministry called a tender for the casino concession for the region of Central Transdanubia in February and announced American-owned KC Bidding as the winner on August 14. The tender was for a 20-year concession and an annual concession fee of at least HUF 900m. The casino must have at least 1,500 gaming machines and 100 gaming tables.
Joav Blum, one of the group of investors who plan to build the casino, earlier exchanged farm land he owned along the planned route of road no. 4, plus paid HUF 300m for a state-owned plot on the banks of Lake Valence. The investors planned to build the casino on the plot.
The MNV noted earlier that the Central Investigation Agency had said in a report that the farm land was estimated to be worth HUF 194m, well under the HUF 787m they were valued at in the transaction.
The State Audit Office (ASZ) deemed the contract legally invalid in an assessment, saying only a fraction of the farm land Mr Blum owned was necessary for the road, and this could have been expropriated by the state.