The management of the Greek state lottery OPAP has decided initially to keep the Intralot terminals and not to include them in the currently running tender for a computer system. Now it became clear that the lottery company is in a process of negotiations with Socrates Kokkalis for signing a new contract for maintenance of the terminals, and of a memorandum, which would bind the company through connecting them to the computer system that will win the tender.
Anyway, the contract signed in July 2010 that renewed the contract signed in 2007 for which the then owner of OPAP and Intralot has to respond to the judicial authorities is expected to be renewed for another year in July.
The Athens prosecution launched an investigation against Socrates Kokkalis and four others for severe abuse and moral inducement to which it raised a number of questions about the future relations between the two companies. The remaining defendants are the managing director of Intralot Constantinos Antonopoulos and the former managers of OPAP in the period 2005 - 2007 Sotiris Kostakos and Vassilis Niadas.
According to legal sources, the case of one of the defendants is separated and the pre-trial investigation continues, while the case of two others was sent to court records. The main shareholder of Intralot Socrates Kokkalis was one of the eight suspicious persons who were summoned for questioning by the prosecutor. The remaining seven were Constantinos Antonopoulos, Sotiris Kostakos, Vassilis Niadas, OPAP’ manager in the period 2007 - 2009 Christos Hadziemanuil and three members of the commission that evaluates the bids in the tender of OPAP, which was unsuccessful.
The investigation is in connection with the contracts for the Intralot’s supply of computer equipment for OPAP signed in 2005 - 2007. According to the contract, the value of the supply was 96 million euros, but it is believed that gradually it reached 300 million euros. The called international tender for the specific delivery has been declared a failure after the three offers were evaluated 18 months.
Quite surprisingly, however, ten days before the bids expire the chairman and a member of the evaluation commission submitted their resignations, which made the offers no longer valid. For this reason and because of the urgency OPAP entrusted the execution of the order directly to Intralot. According to the prosecution, that has caused serious losses to the Greek state after the initially estimated amount of 96 million suddenly reached 280 million euros.
The contract signed in 2007 was for a period of three years, but OPAP has reserved its right to unilaterally renew it for one year. The present management of OPAP also has taken advantage of this opportunity and in July 2010 renewed the contract for another 1 +1 +1 year as it became clear several months ago.
OPAP’s manager George Spanoudakis even explained that the contract with Intralot would be renewed again in the coming July, as even after the tender for computer equipment that is ongoing now additional time is needed to connect the new system to the Intralot terminals at the lottery stations. Then, the management of OPAP decided that ultimately it is not in favour of the company to purchase new terminals since there are those of Intralot.
A company statement made late last night reads that "the contract relationships between Intralot and OPAP which are not questioned were investigated by the European Commission and the Greek courts, and it has been found that the contracts were signed in full legitimacy." The company management also stated that it hopes the investigation to make it clear that the contract was in favour of OPAP and caused no loss to the Greek state lottery.
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