Regional defence and machinery conglomerate Czechoslovak Group (CSG) has rejected claims about the existence of a backdoor “money-channel” between financial start up Fingood and the Kallan Legal law firm, majority owned by Slovak Minister of Defence Robert Kaliňák. 

“[Neither] the group CSG nor me personally have ever been a contracting party between Fingood and the law firm Kallan Legal,” CSG’s CEO and owner Michal Strnad said in a press statement shared with bne IntelliNews.

Strnad added that “CSG has never ordered or paid for legal services to this firm and there is not any financial relation between CSG and Mr. Minister Kaliňák,” and that “I do not own Fingood and do not partake in its management".

Strnad made the statement in response to media reports that CSG was supposed to invest into the Fingood financial investment start-up, and that Fingood was supposed to make payments to Kaliňák’s Kallan Legal. 

The Amsterdam-listed CSG is a key defence contractor of the Slovak Ministry of Defence and according to Slovak investigative journalists secured contracts worth €60.36bn since Kaliňák became minister of defence in 2023, when Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Smer party returned to power.

Fingood reportedly made payments worth several million Czech crowns (CZK1mn is about €41,000) to Kallan Legal since the two entities closed down a collaboration contract in the summer of 2021, Czech online news outlet Seznam Zprávy (SZ) wrote in an investigative story.  

“We sent them [Kallan Legal] between CZK2mn-3mn a year. For FinGood it was a large sum, we were a small company,” a FinGood manager, whose name SZ did not disclose, was quoted as saying.

SZ wrote that his words were corroborated by the company’s former CEOs, including minority shareholder in FinGood Vít Endler, who told SZ that “they [Fingood] invoiced monthly," adding that “as far as I recall it was tens of thousand, or lower hundreds of thousand a month”.

Another FinGood exCEO Tomáš Pešek told SZ that Kallan Legal “were supplying analyses of the Slovak market and legal environment in Slovakia” and that he met that Kallan Legal’s 70% owner “in person”.

FinGood was supposed to enter the Slovak market, but eventually backed down from the plans and “the project Slovakia ended sometime in 2024,” according to Endler. Fingood is reportedly still making payments to Kallan Legal, but the current Fingood management declined to provide more details to SZ.

The outlet’s journalists wrote that Kaliňák is “suspected of systematic bias” in connection with the payments, saying that defence contracts concluded with CSG under Kaliňák’s watch “helped to raise interest” in CSG’s shares following its Amsterdam bourse debut.

Kaliňák confirmed to SZ that his company has worked for FinGood, noting that he cannot disclose more details due to “lawyer confidentially”, and he denied having any knowledge of Michal Strnad being behind the start up.

As bne IntelliNews reported earlier, CSG's January 23 IPO on the Euronext bourse in Amsterdam became the “world’s largest defence IPO ever recorded both in terms of amount raised and market capitalisation,” according to Euronext.

With the current market valuation of approximately €32bn, CSG became the most valuable Czech company ahead of the majority-state-owned energy utility ČEZ.

Bloomberg estimated Strnad’s fortune at $37bn, making him the world’s third richest man below 40 years of age behind Mark Mateschitz, one of Red Bull’s inheritors, and Lukas Walton, grandson of Walmart’s founder Sam Walton.

In his statement for bne IntelliNews Strnad stressed that “defence industry is one of the most regulated sectors,” and he also confirmed to know Kaliňák personally, describing the Slovak political stalwart as placing “long term stress on the development of the Slovak defence industry”.

“Thanks to this strategy Slovakia in the last few years became one of the significant European producers of large calibre ammunition,” Strnad stated, adding that “this development brought about thousands of jobs and significant tax income for the Slovak state”.

As bne IntelliNews covered previously, Fico made a comeback to power on an anti-Ukrainian ticket and his sitting left-right cabinet axed state military aid to Ukraine, but commercial military exports thrived under Fico.  

“I am sorry that results of our work in the development of Slovak defence industry have become subject of a political conflict, which I find irrelevant and unfair,” Strnad concluded in reference to the polarised political situation in Slovakia and the Fico government’s clashes with the EU and the liberal opposition over the country’s rule of law infringements. 

Strnad also pointed out to bne IntelliNews that “Slovak defence contracts, which have been discussed recently,” are “just framework contracts, which can be joined by other states,” and “are built on the Slovak industry and [its] production capacities” and that “in connection to these CSG invests into the expansion of production capacities in Slovakia”.   

As bne IntelliNews covered last month, the Bratislava-based Ján Kuciak Investigative Center (ICJK) wrote in an investigation published on February 19 that Ministry of Defence contracts signed with CSG could have been intended to send a positive signal to investors ahead of the company’s January 2026 IPO. However, this was denied by CSG.