Czech Position has learned that the Center for Economics and Politics (CEP), the think tank founded by President Václav Klaus in 1998 after he stepped down as prime minister, entrusted money to Key Investments, an opaque brokerage under investigation by the central bank — and got most of it back. Meanwhile, two Prague city districts have yet to see huge sums of taxpayers’ money sunk into junk and illiquid bonds returned.

Prime Minister Petr Nečas (ODS) on Wednesday evening accepted the resignation of Trade and Industry Minister Martin Kocourek (also ODS), after it came out that he had attempt to hide his assets from his now ex-wife by consolidating them in bonds worth millions, put in his mother’s name — and invested with the dodgy brokerage Key Investments. He could face charges of fraud.

After eight months of hesitation, the administration of Prague 10, which in 2009 entrusted Kč 200 million of taxpayers’ money to the controversial brokerage Key Investments, has commissioned three independent analyses — by the Expert Institute at VŠE, Grant Thornton Valuations and legal expert Josef Luňák — to make an appraisal of the non-liquid bonds in the firms Via Chem Group and E Side Property.

The miner Sokolovská uhelná invested around Kč 50 mln with brokerage Key Investments, but upon closing its account it received just Kč 4.9 million. Key Investments bought bonds in Spolchemie with the miner’s cash; the same bonds are in the portfolios of several Prague districts. Sokolovská uhelná claims the Czech National Bank (ČNB) has failed its legal duty by not properly investigating the dubious brokerage.