There are growing doubts over the legality of the choice of CEEI as prime contractor to plan and erect on behalf of ČEZ a spent nuclear fuel facility at NPP Temelín in 2008.

Here is a summary of reasons for doubting the legality of the contract.

• The breathtaking difference in cost of the Czech facility planned and erected under CEEI’s leadership, compared with its Bavarian equivalent and ČEZ’s own cost estimates of the very same facility.

• The refusal by ČEZ and CEEI's legal representatives to disclose the ownership of CEEI, which is hidden behind a raft of management companies in Cyprus.

• The profile of CEEI’s legal representatives, who include Jiří Kovář, an ODS lawyer and former sidekick to prime minister Václav Klaus; Martin Peter, a PR consultant and prison inmate; and Rostislav Senjuk, chairman of an ODS proxy party and author of the priceless line, ‘I have no clue who owns CEEI but I am certain it is not Martin Roman’.

• The lack of evidence of an actual functioning business called CEEI, a.s., apart from a pretty website on which CEEI proudly claims to be the regional partner of GNS, Europe’s leading producer of spent fuel casks, a claim GNS denies outright.

• The written statement by GNS that neither it nor its subsidiary WTS had ever granted a facility design licence to CEEI, on the basis of which CEEI qualified for the ČEZ tender and was awarded the contract.

• The refusal by ČEZ to provide proof of the existence of the purported design licence between CEEI and the GNS subsidiary.

• And the financial links, uncovered by the Swiss criminal police, between CEEI’s former Liechtenstein-registered owner and Appian (of Škoda Plzeň fame).

Surely, these are sufficient grounds for opening a criminal investigation into the circumstances of the contract between ČEZ and CEEI negotiated and signed by Daniel Beneš? And if not a criminal investigation, then at least reason enough for Miroslav Kalousek, who represents the state as majority shareholder of ČEZ, to order an audit of the transaction.