All 198 Vektra Boka workers have recovered their claims through the courts after a 24-year legal fight, former union leader Vojo Miljanić, former worker Maja Pajević and lawyer Jovan Pejović said. The claims arose before and after the privatisation of the Herceg Novi hotel company HTP Boka, and the representatives said nothing more was owed to the workers.
Payments came first from the sale of the Igalo hotel and, more recently, from the sale of the Plaža hotel, according to Miljanić. About 50 workers were able to retire after the Igalo sale because contributions covering their employment service were paid. “We have been paid to the last cent,” he said.
Pejović said workers employed until the company’s bankruptcy recovered about 80,000 euros. Around 10 who continued working for the employer after bankruptcy collected approximately 320,000 euros through the two hotel sales. The Tax Administration also settled its claims for contributions from sales of the hotel assets.
After the obligations were settled, about 8 million euros remained with Vektra Boka, Pejović said. Interest arising from delays in payments under the Reorganisation Plan still needs to be calculated. He reported no active HTP Boka worker lawsuits or unfinished enforcement proceedings with the two public enforcement officers involved.
Court rulings and severance claims
Over almost two and a half decades, Pejović obtained about 100 court rulings in workers’ favour and none against them, according to his account. Establishing their claims required six judgments. Miljanić credited the lawyer with the outcome and said the state had ruled in the workers’ favour.
The former union leader said the workers were not seeking severance because they knew they had no entitlement to it, although he did not oppose others pursuing claims. Pejović explained that bankruptcy alone did not trigger severance: the collective agreement provided it for workers declared redundant.
According to Miljanić, the Commercial Court, Higher Court and Court of Appeal rejected lawsuits brought by the president of the NGO Former Vektra Boka Workers. The lawsuits sought severance equal to 24 personal salaries on grounds of disability, as well as legal costs for the rejected claim.
Pejović declined to represent the NGO because he considered its interpretation of the share-sale agreement mistaken. Its members had nevertheless received compensation under court judgments he obtained, he said. Miljanić likewise maintained that members challenging the hotel sales had themselves been paid.
Privatisation contract dispute
The disputed contract covered the sale of 59.45% of HTP Boka’s share capital to Vektra Montenegro. Miljanić said its terms required a buyer that breached its obligations to pay the Privatization Council a penalty of 50 average monthly salaries, calculated as of the signing date, for each employee whose employment ended. The NGO was wrong to argue that the amount belonged to each worker, in his interpretation.
Pejović also interpreted the penalty as payable to the Privatization Council rather than to employees. Instead of seeking severance, he proposed that the NGO ask the state to terminate the share-sale agreement with Brković and seek compensation for Vektra Boka and workers who lost their jobs. That issue should be discussed with the Government of Montenegro rather than on the streets of Herceg Novi, he said.
The NGO has challenged procedures and decisions concerning sales of the hotel assets, according to participants at the workers’ gathering. Miljanić said its president had invoked conclusions of the Commission for Monitoring Privatisation, although the commission was not an executive authority, and had been asked not to address it further.
Miljanić criticised the NGO for accusing those who disagreed with it of being part of an organised crime group. He said its accusations extended to Commercial Court judges, Tax Administration directors, judges at the Basic Courts in Herceg Novi and Podgorica, lawyers, public enforcement officers and some media.
Property proceeds and hotel plans
The Municipality of Herceg Novi collected more than five million euros from sales of Vektra Boka properties over the past three years, according to Miljanić. He also criticised two municipal representatives, both councillors from the governing side, for attending an NGO protest outside the municipality.
Miljanić attributed a two-year delay in the Igalo hotel sale to the NGO’s intervention. He estimated that each worker consequently missed 24 pension payments, worth more than 10,000 euros. The sale should have been completed two years earlier, according to his account.
Žarko Rakčević, described by Miljanić as the new owner of the Plaža hotel, has said it will employ more than 150 workers after adaptation. Miljanić expected the renovated property to benefit Herceg Novi residents, small businesses, the municipality and the state.
Speaking on behalf of most workers, Pajević thanked journalists who, in her view, had supported them and helped expose abuses. She linked Vektra Boka in southern Montenegro with Vektra Jakić in the north, describing what she saw as the same pattern of plunder. She called the workers’ outcome “not only a financial but a moral success”.
Pajević alleged that Vektra Boka assets had been sold while million-euro loans were paid through assignments to accounts of subsidiaries of the same owner, Brković. During that period, workers waited for wages and institutions remained silent about abuses, she said.
On 26 October 2026, the NGO applied to the Basic Court in Herceg Novi to annul the Plaža and Igalo hotel sales, Miljanić said. Pajević said workers feared that overturning the transactions could put wages already paid and contributions already transferred at risk.
