After a four-year legal process, the Basic Court in Sokolac issued a non-final verdict requiring the company “Club Aparthotel Vučko” to return over two million marks to Russian investor Dragan Đordan, who had spent years investing in the construction of the luxury “Vučko” hotel-apartment complex on Jahorina.
Đordan, a Tuzla native with three decades of experience in the construction business in Russia, entered the apartment construction project in Jahorina in 2010. He partnered with Aleksandar and Milomir Prović, a father and son who managed the old Vučko hotel, and Mirko Tica, an investor from Serbia.
The idea was that they [the Prović family] wanted to build, and they had the land and the project, while others should be financing it,” Đordan said earlier to CIN journalists.
Đordan, the Prović family, and Tica entered into a joint venture agreement to establish the company Club Aparthotel Vučko, through which they would invest funds to finance the construction. According to the agreement, the invested money was to be repaid to the investors from the sale of the apartments, while the company’s profits would be divided among their children.
However, years later, it turned out that Đordan was the only one who fully invested money into the construction. Tica contributed half of the agreed amount, while the Prović family’s investment share remained nothing more than an empty promise.
“I invested 13 million, but I only got 235,000 KM back,” said Đordan
CIN previously revealed that the Prović family secured their initial capital not only from the private assets of other businessmen but also from property owned by Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The Municipality of Pale, in disregard of state laws, granted them the old Olympic hotel Vučko and valuable state-owned forest land on which they built the apartments.
After examining Đordan’s evidence and payment slips, Judge Igor Roić confirmed that Đordan had paid over 10.8 million BAM to the company Club Aparthotel Vučko, as verified by the company’s accounting records. However, the court ruled that only a little over two million BAM—an amount Đordan had loaned to the company for construction—should be repaid to him. The funds he invested directly into building the complex on Jahorina were not recognised by the court.
In his ruling, Judge Roić noted that joint venture agreements are not specifically regulated under the legal system of Bosnia and Herzegovina and have not been the subject of court disputes in the country.
“If one partner withdraws, the other may face an additional financial burden. Hence, while the parties signed a joint venture agreement, the court believes that, in this case, it reflects their intention to make a joint investment based on a partnership principle. (…) The Plaintiff (Đordan) fails to recognise that such business ventures involve both risks and benefits, meaning that investing in this project could also lead to financial losses,” Judge Roić wrote in his ruling.
Furthermore, the judge notes that the investment in Jahorina has never been completed, meaning the conditions for contract termination have not been met, and therefore, Đordan has no right to claim a refund for the money he invested.
“In the court’s assessment, it is impossible to demand the return of investment (…) Therefore, the court found the Plaintiff’s claim for 8.4 million BAM to be unfounded,” the ruling states.
The court accepted Đordan’s payments, which were classified as loans to the company Club Aparthotel Vučko under the agreement, amounting to 2,109,665 BAM. However, no interest was calculated on this amount, as the court did not address this issue and did not consider that Đordan had proven the interest rates during the proceedings.
“Calculating interest rates involves ‘advanced’ mathematics, a field in which this court lacks the necessary expertise,” Judge Roić stated in the ruling.
In 2022, more than 80 apartments, either fully or partially constructed with Đordan’s funds, were sold to the company Real Estate Jahorina. These apartments were sold by another investor, Tica from Serbia.
In 2021, Tica filed a private lawsuit against Club Aparthotel Vučko. His son-in-law, the company’s director, acknowledged the debt, and based on this acknowledgment, the Basic Court in Sokolac ordered the company to pay Tica 4.4 million marks for loans used in the construction. The court issued this ruling without any evidence that Tica had actually made the payments. As a result, Tica was granted the right to register as the owner of the apartments based on the alleged debt for investments.
The ruling in Đordan’s case by the Basic Court in Sokolac is not final, and an appeal may be lodged against it with the District Court in East Sarajevo.
