The Dutch company Achmea, owner of the Union health insurer has opened another arbitration procedure against Slovakia, this time over the threat of expropriation of private health insurers that the Slovak government admits as one of the possibilities in introducing a unitary health insurance system in the country. “Achmea plans to preserve the investment in Union and is of the opinion that the planned expropriation is not in the public interest, does not comply with due legal process, and is discriminatory. Moreover, the way how the Slovak Republic plans to continue the expropriation process is obviously at odds with the bilateral agreement on investments “said spokesman for Achmea
Slovakia only recently lost arbitration with Achmea over the ban on profit of health insurers. It is supposed to pay to Achmea 22 million euro in reimbursement of damages and a further three million in costs of legal services. Meanwhile the Health Ministry is moving forward with the planned project of a single health insurance company which the Cabinet of Robert Fico approved in October of last year. It has already founded a company for the establishment of a unitary system of public health insurance, which should shelter the entire process. The operation of a single state health insurance company is scheduled to start in January of 2014. If the state fails to agree with owners of the two private health insurance companies on their purchase and uses the expropriation method instead, the start of the single insurer system would be postponed until July of 2014.
Katarína Richterová
