News site: FBI to investigate alleged corruption linked to sale of Česká spořitelna

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation is to begin an inquiry into the privatisation of a Czech bank, the news website aktualne.cz reported. The investigation into the year 2000 sale of Česká spořitelna to Austria’s Erste Bank has been sparked by allegations made by two former executives at the latter institution. The two, who were fired by Erste this year, say the bank paid bribes to local politicians and officials when buying banks in the central and eastern Europe region. They told aktualne.cz that in the Czech Republic the bribery concerned leading politicians. The former bank officials are planning to file lawsuits against Erste in the US. For its part, the Austrian bank has rejected the allegations, while former ministers who served under then Czech prime minister Miloš Zeman have also denied any wrongdoing.