Polish Court Orders Arrest in Orlen Swiss Unit Investigation

WARSAW (Reuters) - A Warsaw court on Monday ordered a former chief executive of the Swiss trading unit of Polish oil refiner Orlen to be detained for three months as part of an investigation into oil deliveries worth nearly $400 million the company never received.

Former head of Orlen Trading Switzerland (OTS), referred to only as Samer A. under Polish privacy laws, has been charged with entering into contracts that resulted in $378 million losses for Orlen and its Swiss subsidiary, the Regional Prosecutor's Office said in a statement.

The court also issued an arrest warrant for another top manager of OTS referred to as Marcin O., on the same charges.

Reuters was unable to reach Samer A. and Marcin O.

In what has become a politically charged case in Warsaw because Orlen is controlled by the Polish state, the Polish prosecutors have been investigating OTS' loss of nearly $400 million in prepayments, mostly for Venezuelan oil.

The court sitting was closed to the press. The prosecutor said that the suspects' whereabouts are not known and the evidence obtained indicates that they are in hiding.

"The issuance of decisions on the temporary arrest of suspects enables the prosecutor to start searching for suspects with arrest warrants," the statement said.

In October, a Polish court ordered the detention of another executive of OTS for three months as part of the investigation.

Orlen has not recovered the money OTS sent in prepayments for oil deliveries.

The company bought oil worth over 100 billion zloty ($24.64 billion) between 2018 and 2023 and never made prepayments, Orlen said last month. Oil majors typically use letters of credit when buying the commodity.

($1 = 4.0578 zlotys)

(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki, Editing by William Maclean)