Šolak’s payroll to eliminate competition: Through lobbying agencies, he hired “credible” media and individuals to produce commissioned research
Under the leadership of Dragan Šolak, United Group fought its competitors through a network of both open and covert associates, while Kurir itself found itself caught in the whirlwind of lies manufactured by a well-oiled mechanism for eliminating rivals.
We became a target for revealing the secret connections between lobbying agencies such as the company Highgate, non-governmental organizations like the Balkan Free Media Initiative (BFMI), the International Press Institute (IPI), CRTA and many others, as well as so-called independent analysts, researchers, commentators, journalists, consultants... in short, many who were (or still are) in a relationship of mutual interest with United Group while Šolak was in charge and drawing up the payroll.
Until Kurir’s reporting, these were invisible levers through which Šolak created an illusion of objectivity and independence for his own media and those under his control, thereby building false credibility and opportunities for further profit.
Meetings in the European Parliament
In numerous articles we have shown how Šolak made abundant use of manufactured research as a means of preparing the ground for discreditation. For this purpose, Šolak’s mechanism was upgraded, and the main strike force became BFMI and the lobbyists from the powerful London-based company Highgate, which had in fact been Šolak’s contracted ally for years.
Kurir discovered that since May 2021 United Group, together with its lobbyists, held at least three officially recorded meetings with representatives of the European Parliament. Šolak hired Highgate, a London consultancy, for these operations, with the most prominent figure being Dragica Pilipović, Vice-President for Corporate Affairs at United Group. She had entered Šolak’s top management directly from a director’s position at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Whoever his target might be, Šolak’s mechanism for eliminating competition operates by the same principle, using the same methods to penetrate various institutions through non-transparent channels and turn them into protectors of his own interests and guarantors of further enrichment.
At that time, Šolak’s lobbyists tried by every means to influence the content of the European Parliament’s report on Serbia and the references to Telekom within it. Later, our own company WMG also came under attack from this mechanism.
We devoted many investigative series about Šolak precisely to the lobbying agencies and the scheme through which he paid “credible” media outlets and individuals within them for commissioned reports that provided his media with ammunition for attacking certain targets.
Through his machinery, Šolak organised numerous deceptions involving his media and non-governmental organizations. The leading role was regularly played by BFMI, an organization proclaiming its independence while in fact being closely linked to United Group through mutual interests. Last year our company was forced to take active part in exposing a harmful spin by United Group in the building of the European Parliament. On that occasion, BFMI presented in Strasbourg its new report on the media situation in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Slovenia — which was merely Šolak’s attempt to confront his competitors in those countries.
We argued, based on evidence, that the BFMI report had nothing to do with an objective view of the media or concern for media freedom, but served solely to protect the business interests of United Group and to eliminate its competitors without scruple.
At that time, United Group’s media published a piece about WMG as an “investigative article” of the International Press Institute (IPI). It turned out that the text on IPI’s website was initially signed as the work of the Briton Ian Peter Westad, but shortly afterwards the “author” was changed, and the name replaced by the organization BFMI. The most intriguing aspect of this affair is the fact that the originally listed Briton had worked for Highgate — the very lobbying company used by Šolak — while he was then employed by the British government. It is also noteworthy that Westad, while employed at Highgate, interviewed BFMI director Antoinette Nikolova, who simultaneously worked for Nova, Šolak’s media outlet in Bulgaria.
A system of communicating vessels
This was only the beginning of uncovering the network of interests surrounding Šolak. The board of BFMI is composed of people paid by him. One such figure is Peter Horrocks, a media veteran who simultaneously sits as a member of the BFMI Management Committee and as an adviser to the Editorial Board of television channel N1, owned by United Group. Andrey Kovachev, a Member of the European Parliament, was the intermediary through whom Šolak’s various initiatives were channelled into this institution, such as the promotion of the BFMI report, which last year attempted to discredit WMG.
We exposed Šolak’s attempt to link the presentation of what was clearly a commissioned report to the European Parliament in order to lend it political weight. We published his entire network of individuals and organizations connected through financial and vested interests who participated in this manipulation. In this case, the time and venue for the presentation of the BFMI report were arranged by Kovachev, who had prior ties with United Group. Among the panel participants was, among others, N1 News Director Igor Božić, while the moderator was Peter Horrocks, presented as the former Director of the BBC and a current member of the Content Board of the UK’s Ofcom (Office of Communications). However, a crucial fact was concealed: at that moment Horrocks simultaneously held positions as a member of the BFMI Management Committee and as an adviser to the Editorial Board of N1 TV, owned by United Group.
Šolak also organised actions in which, with the engagement of lobbyists from the Highgate consultancy, he sought to influence the content of reports on Serbia in order to clear the field of major competition and save his own business in the country. The image of a pro-European businessman was essential to Šolak for expanding his ventures, so he left nothing to chance.
Each of the aforementioned cases — and there were many more, all covered in detail by Kurir — provides an illustrative example of how Šolak’s United Group established a kind of system of communicating vessels, through which every convenient and profitable piece of news is shaped according to its own interests and presented as unquestionable and objective information. Behind such operations there always lurked Šolak’s hunger for ever greater profit.
Kurir Editorial Team
