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Czech lottery and energy billionaire Karel Komarek has failed to sever his business ties to Russia, despite promising to do so as part of his winning bid to take over the British National Lottery licence, reported UK news website Tortoise Media.
Komarek's Allwyn lottery operator won the National Lottery operating license in March 2022, shortly after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, despite extensive ties with Russia's Gazprom. Russia's gas giant and several of its key figures are on the UK’s sanction list.
As part of its bid, Komarek's KKCG holding company said it would shortly end its gas storage joint venture with Gazprom in the Czech Republic, Tortoise reported. Komarek and Allwyn also publicly condemned Putin’s war as senseless, brutal and barbaric.
Senior executives from the Gambling Commission, which ran the National Lottery licence competition for the government, told the UK's parliamentary committee that oversaw the competition on 30 June 2022 that they expected Komarek to divest from the Gazprom joint venture within days. They also told the MPs Komárek had already divested from the Samara oil terminal.
However, company records and a statement from Komarek’s lawyers at Schillings state that he divested from the oil terminal in the Samara region on 19 September 2022, ie. half a year after winning the National Lottery licence and seven months after the invasion of Ukraine. The divestment was by means of selling the oil terminal to a recently-former employee of Komarek.
Moreover, more than 18 months after winning the lottery license, KKCG has still not left or completely removed Gazprom from its joint venture Moravian Gas Storage, consisting of an energy terminal in Damborice in the Czech Republic. Komárek’s representatives had said that he’d divest from the joint venture before or shortly after the competition by selling his half to the Czech government, Tortoise reports.
KKCG has said that "detailed negotations are continuing" with the Czech government on selling the joint venture.
In the meantime, in October, KKCG raised the share capital of Moravian Gas Storage, diluting Gazprom’s shareholding from 50 to 3 per cent, and said Gazprom should be removed from the company in the next 12 months.
Damborice facility is one of the most modern underground gas storage facilities in Europe, and its construction was commenced in 2013 following the establishment of the Moravian Gas Storage JV. Its overall capacity is 448mn cubic meters.
In August 2022, the government seized half of its capacity, or 242mn cubic meters according to Czech TV, after amending the country’s Energy Act, enabling authorities to seize unused gas capacities in gas storage facilities across the country in an effort to brace the country for the winter months of the energy crisis.
Komarek is the third richest Czech, according to the Forbes list of billionaires, with $8.1bn.
Komarek grouped his lottery assets in Greece, Italy, Austria and the United Kingdom under the Allwyn brand last year. Komarek rose in the lottery business shortly after the 2012 takeover of Czech lottery behemoth Sazka, which had gone bankrupt.
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