Final Word from Friday, July 22, 2005
France is trying to save Danone from the Yanks, the U.S. is trying to save Unocal from the Chinese, and the CR is turning ČEZ into its own national champion. The latest pro-ČEZ step was the nomination of Deputy Industry Minister Martin Pecina - a ČEZ supervisory-board member - to run the antitrust office. That office already looked the other way when ČEZ paid a low price for regional distributors and reversed itself on an order for ČEZ to sell one of the distributors. ČEZ also got away with signing a long-term coal deal with Severočeské doly before a decision was made to let ČEZ set its own price for buying the coal mines. And the SEC did nothing when a ČEZ insider bought shares a day before the utility announced market-moving results. Then there are the stock options and emissions vouchers. When will all this national championing start to pay off for regular Czechs?[Czech Republic energy distribution electricity production United States China competition monopoly]