Huta Szkla Warta issues shares while dispute over ownership continues

Huta Szkla Warta (Warta) glass works managed to register two issues of C and E series of preference shares before the end of 2000 and is now preparing for the operation. Over one million E series shares will go to Huta Szkla Jedlice glass works, controlled by Wojciech Pawlowski, Warta's major investor, while five million shares will be taken by the company's other current shareholders. Yet the partnership of investors and company employees which took over the glass works from the state and has already paid all the leasing installments are not guaranteed that they will keep control of the company, since yesterday the Supreme Court (NSA) ruled that the glass works was illegally nationalized in 1948, and thus its pre-war owner is entitled to demand restitution of the property. According to Tomasz Kwiecinski, the plenipotentiary of Warta's former owners, they will request the Treasury Ministry to annul the privatization decisions made in the 1990s and try to retrieve their property. The heir of Warta's pre-war owners, Maria Hejn, has said she will not act to the disadvantage of the company and its employees.(Rzeczpospolita, p. B4) J.K.