Final Word from Thursday, March 31, 2022

When we wrote in Oct. 2017 that, "It's well known in Prague business circles that if you need the ÚOHS antitrust office to rule in a certain way, you must hire lawyer Radek Pokorný to attend to the matter," Pokorný sued us to remove the line and the rest of the text. He later dropped that motion and instead asked the courts to ban just two of the six sentences of the text, which they did. We are still allowed to say that it was an issue then of Pokorný's "special relationship" with Chair Petr Rafaj of the antitrust office. Now, four and a half years later, the issue is Pokorný's special relationship with Industry Min. Jozef Síkela of STAN, who is in charge of such important things as energy policy and crisis relief for companies. Andrej Babiš told Parlamentní listy that Pokorný is a "big pal of STAN's" and that Pokorný supposedly controls Síkela's ministry. That's an allegation that will be hard for Síkela to shake. Rafaj was only able to escape Pokorný's control and police attention by resigning. [ Czech Republic Wagner minister ]