Retainol employees have been waiting for unpaid wages for a year

1. June 2025 at 10:50

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For many years, the Austrian OMV has been one of the stable two in the number of petrol stations. Their number grew last year after OMV bought 26 pumps from Penzinol Slovakia.

Transaction agreed The Antimonopoly Office in April 2024.

When the petrol station sold to a stronger competitor, its employees signed an agreement to terminate employment. In it, Penzinol undertook to pay them severance pay based on the years worked.

“In the end, even a wage for April 2024 was not paid,” complains Slavomíra Izelková, a former petrol employee.

She was not entitled to severance pay because she worked at the branch less than a year.

In addition to the April wage, her colleagues did not pay even severance pay of two to three times the average wage to which they were entitled. Even after a year, the situation did not resolve and former employees became hostages of the promises of the Managing Director of Penzinol Slovakia Martin Čepel.

Debts that are not solved

Benzinol Slovakia owned the blade until 2017. Subsequently passed under two Cyprus BH CY CY -European and Bablad, but the blade manager remained.

Benzinol has been drowning in red numbers for three years in a row. Since 2022, it has accumulated a loss of almost EUR 6.5 million.

The annual report for the last year shows that the company records liabilities of EUR 373,000 against former employees.

In addition, it has debts on all sides. The Social Insurance Agency registers the debt against petrol of EUR 540,000 and owes an additional EUR 1.1 million on taxes.

It is likely that the company did not pay contributions to health insurance companies. The General Health Insurance Company records debt of EUR 114,000 and Union another EUR 40,000.

Penisinol also had unresolved commitments to business partners. One of them, Tomegas, a company in April 2024 sent to bankruptcy. The court stopped the trial for unlisted reasons. Tomegas did not want to comment on the case.

Martin Čepel did not answered questions about debt to employees, tax office and health insurance companies. The Benzinol website has not been working since last year, the company has not officially communicated or the acquisition of OMV or the debt that remained after the sale of petrol stations.

On Social Network Linkedin Martin Čepel in September 2024 publishedthat he started working as a professor at the Institute of Management and Marketing of the Pan -European University.

Playing a dead beetle

Last year, petrol employees filed a mass call to pay the amount owed for wages and severance pay, but did not respond to the call to the call.

Former employees turned to the Social Insurance Agency, from which they asked for a guarantee insurance benefit. Employees have the right to it if their employer is in insolvency.

And that is a fundamental problem.