Source: Jutarnji.hr
Grizli Komunikacije agency is again working for Most (Bridge), a political movement in Croatia. This is a summary of the affair which started in May when amidst the “consultant” scandal emerged contracts with Grizli. Agency Grizli, responsible for the image of Most, promised its other clients who have legal and other kinds of difficulties with the state that they would provide them a meeting with ministers from the ranks of Most.
The controversial contract appeared in the public after documents were stolen from a car in the parking lot, argued the agency, accusing the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). HDZ on the other hand retorted that Most is no better than the others and that these contracts are proof of Most’s corruption. To put out the fire, both Most and Grizli unanimously declared the termination of business cooperation.
Now, on the eve of early elections, this cooperation has been restored.
Since their business relationship was brought to an end with the statement in which responsible inspections were urged to investigate whether the contract that led to the split was shady, Jutarnji.hr wanted to know whether this probe was conducted – or the discontinuation of collaboration was mere damage control. Most’s spokesman Miroslav Šimić claimed that “there was no investigation because there was no need for it”. Šimić commented: “The contract was then terminated because we did not want to be accused that we are influencing someone. It turned out that the affair was benign, so we decided to take them back, but in a smaller form.”
On the other hand, Tomislav Čehulić from Grizli said that the cooperation with Most was reestablished “because we have had excellent results in the last campaign, so we were engaged on the tasks of event management, organization of election night and on activities related to advertising and media buying. Cooperation was previously interrupted in order to prevent damage to Most from fabricated affairs. As we said, in this case the public interest was more important for us than the private, and therefore collaboration was mutually terminated temporarily.”
Čehulić also categorically denies the existence of Grizli affair:
“The so-called affair was a clear attempt of set-up by spy underworld gathered around the former head of the HDZ, Tomislav Karamarko, and his yes-men in some media. The media published a draft agreement prepared by the client, which was never signed by Grizli Komunikacije, which the Braunsberger Holding publicly confirmed and announced. Unfortunately, the media have maliciously published a draft agreement without the last page, which shows that there is no signature by Grizli Komunikacije, in order to alleviate the situation surrounding the ‘consultant’ affair. Actual and signed contract between Grizli Komunikacije and Braunsberger Holding is legally and ethically completely clean. If there was any irregularity, institutions of rule of law would surely have long since responded on this issue, because all documentation is available to them.”
