PZU BOSS NETZEL ARRESTED, BAILED, SACKED

The year-long reign of one-time banker Jaromir Netzel as head of state-owned Polish insurer PZU came to an end on Friday when he was sacked, following his arrest on Thursday during an investigation into leaks that had undermined a probe into bribery at high levels. Mr Netzel, apparently a victim of the currently Byzantine political situation in Poland, was one of several accused of being a channel of privileged information from former Minister of the Interior Janusz Kaczmarek — also arrested on Thursday — to former agriculture minister and deputy prime minister Andrzej Lepper, whose ministry was under investigation. Also arrested was former national police chief Konrad Kornatowski. Mr Kaczmarek said that the arrests were politically motivated, with the aim being to prevent Mr Kornatowski from testifying before the parliamentary secret services commission on Friday about alleged abuses of power by the government of prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Police are still looking for Ryszard Krause, one of the wealthiest businessmen in Poland, but who is believed to have left the country. President Lech Kaczynski has accused Mr Kaczmarek of of belonging to a Warsaw-based cartel of unreformed Communists that the President alleges has dominated business and political life in the country since1989. Poland's Law and Justice-led governing coalition collapsed last month after an investigation into alleged wrongdoing at the Agriculture Ministry last month resulted in the firing of Mr Lepper, who headed one of the two junior coalition parties. The dismissed Mr Netzel had been looking to merge PZU with locally based bank PKO “as quickly as possible”, a project that now looks in doubt. He had also had many disagreements with the substantial minority shareholder in PZU, Netherlands-based Eureko, whose members were removed from the management board earlier this year. PZU is now left with just one management board member.