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The dispute between Panos Kamenos and Andrikos Papandreou began a year ago with his statements in parliament. He accused then the members of the Papandreou family of having staked on the bankruptcy of Greece and the Prime Minister at the time George Papandreou of having deliberately taken the country to this end. In particular, today's leader of Independent Greeks accused Andrikos Papandreou, the brother of the Prime Minister at the time, of being involved in the sale-trade of CDS insurances of Greek government bonds, of having staked on the bankruptcy of the country and on putting it under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

There was, however, a response to the allegations. Andrikos Papandreou had filed a complaint in which he sought compensation for defamation to the amount of 1.4 million euro and the trial began several days ago. According to a publication in zougla.gr, however, the materials of the case show that Andrikos Papandreou did not completely rebut Panos Kamenos’ arguments.

It became clear during the examination of the materials in the courtroom that the issue of the CDS insurances of Post Bank, which was state-owned until recently, had become the top news in one of the major web portals for the management of venture capital, namely Go heads. The scandal was presented on the web site in 2010, when a publication stated that the biggest speculator who acted to the detriment of Greece was precisely the state-owned Post Bank.
 
The economist and a member of Independent Greeks today George Tobras stated that a lawsuit and many complaints on this issue had reached Panos Kamenos after the outbreak of the scandal. "According to one of the complaints, one of the buying companies was IJ Partners, which involved the gentlemen Margelos and Igueres."
 
Panos Kamenos’ side stated that through the IJ Partners company, the businessman Theodoros Margelos had profited by buying CDS insurances from Post Bank since due to his friendly relations with the Prime Minister at the time he had known that Greece would have requested assistance from the IMF and that the prices of CDS insurances would have increased.
  
His partner at IJ Partners named Igueres collaborated with George Papandreou in the I4 cense non-governmental organization. According to the testimony of Kyriakos Tobras, Post Bank funded the organization through a subsidiary company called Bank Green Institute. The article in zougla.gr considers a paradox the fact that the office of the non-governmental organization was located in Switzerland, although the documents show that it was based in the University of Athens.

Post Bank held half of the shares of Bank Green Institute whereas the remaining 50% was owned by businessman Kyriakos Griveas who, according to publications, took loans from Post Bank amounting to 24 million euro.

"Therefore, Mr. Kamenos was obliged to ask what had happened to the CDS insurances of Post Bank, who had bought them, who had sold them, who had been the agent, what commissions had been received, where the documentation was and whether IJ Partners had been the buyer. Panos Kamenos has never received answers to these questions," Kyriakos Tobras stated in court.

Andrikos Papandreou on his way to the courtroom; Photo: news247.gr

According to him, the involvement of Andrikos Papandreou in a strategic planning commission of a major international investment fund had become known during the same period. The fund was Unigestion and one of its activities was trading in CDS insurances.

To support his words, Tobras said, "At the same time, the web site of I4 cense advertised two things: The first one was that investors should put their money in favour of the bankruptcy of Greece due to the large profits from the CDS insurances of government bonds, which reached 1,000%. And the second was that the board of the company involved Andrikos Papandreou, a professor at the University of Athens, and that it specialized in the direct award of projects worldwide."

At the end of his testimony the witness stated that the sale of CDS insurances, which had begun on 5 October 2009, had brought Post Bank profits of 25 million euro. In his opinion, if the sale had been effected a year later, the value of insurances would have been ten times higher and the profits of the bank would have amounted to 260 million euro.

Panos Kamenos in front of the courtroom; Photo: real.gr
 
Panos Kamenos denied having calling Andrikos Papandreou "opportunistic" in public and challenged the plaintiff to indicate when he had heard that definition. The leader of Independent Greeks said that he had never used this word, "This is a product of the Internet, where different people comment freely." According to him, various web sites that publish his statements in parliament or in the media had mixed them with the comments of his followers in social media.