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The founder of Proton Bank Lavrentios Lavrentiadis would pay € 51 million in cash to gain immunity and not be investigated for other activities relating to his ill-fated bank. If prosecutors agree to let implicated Lavrentiadis repay the amount that is considered to have been misappropriated, it would be the highest fine in Greece for infringements found in a bank. Whether the bill will be paid or not will become clear in the coming days.

In August this year, it came to light that Athens prosecutors charged seven members of Proton’s board with embezzlement. The largest shareholder in the investigated bank was the businessman Lavrentios Lavrentiadis. His assets were frozen and he found himself the subject of an investigation for embezzlement and money laundering. It is important to note that many of the non-performing loans of his bank relate to other enterprises in which he has interests. The approval of the agreement by the competent Commissioner of Banks of the Bank of Greece is expected in October. The fine is kind of a small compensation, especially given that the state alone paid about € 100 million in the summer to prevent the collapse of the financial institution.

Under the terms of the agreement for which Wikigreeks reports, Lavrentiadis would return € 51 million in cash to a bank in whose balance sheet auditors have discovered a hole. In return, prosecutors would give him immunity for all his activities related to the bank. However, the extent of immunity to be granted to his other "associates" is not clear. After the deal, it is not clear whether prosecutors would continue to investigate allegations of preferential loans to companies related to Lavrentiadis, or other forms of financial crimes, such as diversion of loans to some of his other companies for purposes other than those set out in the loan agreements.

The Greek press reports that the businessman who decided to open his own bank gave loans to some of his companies at 3% - 3.5% interest rate. At the same time, he promised depositors and investors returns of 8% - 9%, without being sure how he would guarantee them. In Greece, the deal for returning € 51 million is considered a success, but foreign analysts say there would be considerable interest in examining Lavrentiadis' business interests of in London and Liechtenstein. Lavrendiadis’ main business is pharmaceutical and his company Alapis has branches in several countries in Southeast Europe, including Bulgaria. Alapis is his most popular creation among them. One of the shareholders in Lavrentiadis' pharmaceutical enterprises was  Bulgarian businessman Mario Al-Jebouri. At the beginning of September this year, the Athens Stock Exchange announced that Al-Jebouri sold his 15.206 per cent in the company's shares to London Latemar Capital Limited and resigned from the board of Alapis.