Proving that ČEZ has been tunneled by its own management with the connivance of its majority shareholder requires more than one tenacious journalist.

A few weeks ago, Jana Klímová of MF Dnes received a prize in recognition of her efforts to uncover the true relationship between Martin Roman of ČEZ and Škoda Power, ČEZ’s biggest supplier during Roman’s time as head of the firm.

Roman is said to regard Klímová as ‘obsessed and unbearable’ (see HN 25. 5. 2012 Posedlá autorka novinových bestsellerů). Given that Roman is back under criminal investigation for conflict of interest, and given that Klímová is the journalist who has done the most to expose these alleged conflicts, his characterisation of her seems fitting, from his perspective. We could hardly expect him to praise her for her balance and charm.

Klímová was asked if she was afraid of Roman, whose lawyers have apparently leant on her to shut up. She said she was afraid only of making a silly mistake which Roman’s lawyers might then use against her.

It strikes me that it is Roman who has greater reason to be afraid. The CCTVs placed at regular intervals along the 2 metre high metal fence that surrounds his fortified hillside home in Prague 5 (not unlike the security fence around NPP Temelín in fact) do not give an impression of nonchalance.

And indeed Roman must be troubled these days. Readers may have spotted that the domestic anti-corruption police were ordered by the Prague state attorney in May to re-open an investigation into contracts between ČEZ and Škoda Power. The state attorney's office revealed that "an audit found the police authority in this matter did not verify information received from public sources and did not determine the authenticity of documents on the basis of which criminal proceedings were started." The evidence in question appears to be that made public by MF Dnes.

This brings me onto a further possible conflict of interest between ČEZ and another of its many lucky suppliers, a matter that also turns upon the authenticity of documents, and of one document in particular.

Some of the more dogged readers amongst you have suggested that I, too, am obsessed by ČEZ, and in particular by its decision to award the planning and erection of its spent nuclear fuel facility at NPP Temelín to a company called CEEI. You have a point. I have laid out in repetitive detail why I think this decision stinks, not to put too fine a word upon it.

The key piece of evidence in any future criminal investigation into the matter would be a German spent nuclear fuel facility design licence held by CEEI which, according to ČEZ’s Ladislav Kříž, forms part of the contractual agreement between itself and CEEI. It was the possession of this design licence that qualified CEEI for the ČEZ tender, and according to Kříž’s colleague Eva Nováková, the reason why CEEI was selected. But the German company in question, a subsidiary of Europe’s leading manufacturer of casks for spent nuclear fuel, denies ever having granted such a licence to CEEI.

This raises three possibilities: Either ČEZ is lying; or the German company is lying; or both are telling the truth and the design licence is a forgery. ČEZ and CEEI refuse to hand over the licence, so unless a criminal investigation is started, in which case ČEZ and CEEI would be obliged to submit the document as evidence, it is ČEZ and CEEI’s word against the word of the German company.

And now for the exasperating part of our tale. If the document was shown to be a forgery, Martin Peter, the person who is said to have signed the document on behalf of CEEI, would be liable. And Peter is already in prison. Such is the way of the world, dear reader!

To sum up then: Even if a criminal investigation were started and even if the case came to court; even if CEEI’s legal representatives were found guilty of misrepresenting the firm in its bid for the ČEZ contract; and even if the judgement of Daniel Beneš, who negotiated and signed the contract on behalf of ČEZ with such an implausible firm, is thereby shown to have been faulty; even if all these things were to come to pass, the fall guy would still be an incarcerated nonentity who used to run a company that designed, not spent nuclear fuel faciltities for national energy champions but stage sets for Helena Vondráčková.

It’s enough to make any normal person obsessed and unbearable!