Government spends millions on international disputes

The daily LIDOVE NOVINY has reported that the Czech government is spending millions of US dollars on international arbitration proceedings. An arbitration with Japanese investment bank Nomura, which brought one of the largest Czech banks, IPB, to the brink of collapse, cost the Czech Republic more than 200,000 USD before proceedings even started properly. A dispute with US-based media company CME over Czech private TV Nova has cost the government nearly 1.5 million dollars. Although the Czech Republic has won another arbitration case with American media tycoon Ronald Lauder, CME's main shareholder, it still had to pay 2 million USD for the proceedings.