A Council of State (CoS) council of justices on Friday ordered a temporary freeze to the ongoing insolvency process for the recently nationalized greater Thessaloniki area urban bus company (OASTh).
The ruling comes after a petition was filed by three members of the previous board of directors and former shareholders of the debt-laden privately-run mass transit operator.
Greece’s leftist-rightist coalition government nationalized OASTh this month as the company struggled to meet daily operating costs or cover months of back pay owed to employees, on top of hundreds of millions of euros in accumulated debts and loan obligations from previous years.
The CoS, Greece’s highest administrative court, declined to block the appointment of a new board of directors, but accepted the petition for a suspension in the liquidation process, at least until a lawsuit against the nationalization is heard by a full court plenum, possibly next month.
The first massive political “reverberations” from the state’s takeover of the troubled company came in the wake of the appointment Stelios Pappas as the unrecompensed president of OASTh. Pappas, a retired power company unionist and one-time president of the economic chamber of commerce, is the father of Digital Policy Minister Nikos Pappas.
In a subsequent response, relevant transport minister Christos Spirtzis said the nationalization of the company has been completed, and that a thorough audit will also commence.
Spirtzis, who is elected from Thessaloniki, also warned that a “series of disclosures” will follow on what he called mismanagement at the company over the last 60 years.
He also said the CoS ruling fully vindicates the government, saying all of the demands by the former OASTh shareholders were rejected.
