LN: The state faces a lawsuit for 300 million for the repair of the house U Černé Matky Boží

Prague - The Czech Republic’s State Fund for Culture is facing a lawsuit from the Seychelles company WBC Capital, which wants to be paid 300 million CZK for a 20-year-old reconstruction of the Prague cubist building U Černé Matky Boží. The company purchased the claim from the bankruptcy of the construction company Konstruktiva, later renamed KO-Holding, for 4.3 million CZK in December 2009. This was reported today by Lidové noviny (LN). According to the newspaper, billionaire Petr Speychal is behind WBC Capital.
The State Fund for Culture, which manages the cubist building, lost to WBC Capital last year at the District Court for Prague 6 but has appealed to the Prague City Court. "The City Court annulled the District Court's decision and will decide again itself after supplementing the evidence and verifying some facts, which is currently ongoing," said the spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture, Simona Cigánková, to the newspaper. However, according to the Seychelles firm's lawyer Dana Modlitba, the court will only decide how much money WBC is entitled to. "That the state has unjustly enriched itself in this case is, in our view, undeniable," he stated.
The dispute arose after the reconstruction of the building adjacent to Prague's Ovocný trh (Fruit Market) in the early 1990s. At that time, according to LN, Konstruktiva disagreed with Minister of Culture Pavel Tigrid regarding the advantages of the contract. Konstruktiva wanted to change it, which Tigrid interpreted as its termination, the newspaper writes. Konstruktiva's successor KO-Holding carried the claim against the Culture Fund of 61 million CZK in 1996. Interest on late payments has increased it to the current 300 million.
According to spokesperson Cigánková, the Culture Fund made several attempts at an out-of-court settlement, but the plaintiff did not accept the offers. "The last serious attempts took place about two years ago. But their offers were in the single millions, which is unacceptable for the client given the size of the claim," said lawyer Modlitba.
The cubist building U Černé Matky Boží was constructed between 1911 and 1912 according to the design of Czech architect Josef Gočár. It is named after the baroque statue on its corner. It currently houses a museum of Czech cubism run by the National Gallery in Prague.