It was the leaking of trade secrets to rivals and blackmails that have led to the resignation of about seventy people at one of the largest Hungarian left-liberal news portals, Index, on Friday, according to the chairman of the board of trustees, who also owns the newpaper. Laszlo Bodolai stressed that there was no political will behind the dismissal of Editor-in-Chief Szabolcs Dull, adding that the current situation is favourable for rivals.

About seventy people resigned from the Hungarian Index news portal on Friday, after the chairman of the board of trustees, who owned the paper, fired his editor-in-chief, Szabolcs Dull. Chairman Laszlo Bodolai reported on the circumstances of the dismissal in a closed online forum, making some very serious allegations regarding Index s former editor-in-chief, Origo writes.

In a shocking document, Mr Bodolai claims that Szabolcs Dull had information one month earlier about the so-called Gerenyi plan, which triggered hysteria in Index s editorial office on Sunday, 21 June. The scheme – also known as the „GG Plan” – was an independent expert opinion on how the news site faced with financial difficulties could be made to run more economically.

No sooner had the plan reached the board of directors than CEO Andras Pusztay announced his resignation. To replace him, Mr Bodolai appointed Zsolt Zody, who beraly spent a week with the portal before he quit. Eventually, Mr Bodolai appointed Pal Szombathy, a leading left-wing journalist of the 1990s, to the post of CEO that has been vacant for weeks. To the board, he delegated an ally of Hungary s disgraced former PM Ferenc Gyurcsany, Andras Sztankoczy, who has become known for his stomach-churning behaviour following the protests against PM Gyurcsany. As a former manager at Hungary s public radio, Mr Sztankoczy was in no rush to openly admit that unidentified officers had beat up some young anti-Gyurcsany protesters on the radio s courtyard, Origo recalls.

The plan was eventually rejected, yet Editor-in-Chief Szabolcs Dull published an article on 21 June, stating that Index s independence was at stake.

According to the chairman, the board meeting took place on Thursday. The following day „I called Szabolcs, on Friday. I said the idea known as the GG plan is not on the agenda anymore, and I asked him to calm down and have a beer with me and the leading editors on Sunday night. He said OK.” On Sunday, however, a journalist of [rival] 24.hu asked Mr Bodola about business secrets he could only learn from Mr Dull.

„In Germany, something like this typically ends with police escorting out the handcuffed former managers. I simply just dismissed him from the board,” he wrote.

Going forward, the chairman would only communicate with the heads of the editorial board if they had signed NDAs, because everything was immediately passed on to 444, another rival portal founded by former Index employees. Meanwhile, advertisers began losing their trust and Index also started to run out of money.

However, Mr Bodolai s most shocking claims are still to come, Origo points out.

„I ve learnt that Szabolcs regularly consulted with high-ranking left-wing party politicians. I gradually began to feel that the real goal was not to make an agreement, but to blow up Index,” writes Mr Bodolai, who then asked an international law firm to run an audit on managerial responsibility. They concluded that „Dull risks nothing, while I risk everything, all my assets, if the company goes bust.”

After the audit he fired the editor-in-chief, who stoked up a rebellion in the editorial staff in return. „Now our rivals are laughing and the left-liberal parties are trying to blame the whole thing on Orban, while I m facing a well-structured smear campaign, just because I made an unavoidable employment decision,” Mr Bodolai concludes his post.

Mr Bodolai s claims have been confirmed, when the opposition Momentum party organised a demonstration for the independence of Index on Friday night.

Speaking to Azonnali.hu about the events, chairman Bodolai stressed that the editorial board had set an impossible condition by demanding the return of editor-in-chief Szabolcs Dull.

„They blackmailed me with impossible conditions,” he said. „Dull leaked a trade secret to the competition and moved Index s independence barometer into the danger zone without consulting management,” Mr Bodolai told Azonnali.hu, explaining why he fired Dull and refused to take the journalist back, as required by the editorial board. He said he recently set down and tried to negotiate with the editor-in-chief, but things spiralled out of control so much that he had to fire him.

Mr Bodolai stressed that there was no political will behind Dull s dismissal or non-reinstatement. „This was my own personal decision,” he said, describing the editorial board s demands to reinstate Dull as pure blackmail.

Still, he didn t expect such a large number of resignations. Mr Bodolai also found the way the editorial staff members spoke to him at Thursday s staff meeting it unworthy, especially in light of the fact that he has been defending them as a lawyer for eighteen years. Mr Bodolai expressed his disappointment in the editorial office, saying he had „taken the blame” for them for three years as the shareholders representative (and had been providing legal councelling for them for even longer).

It was „a very comfortable situation for them, they have never been as free as they were in these three years. By adjusting the independence barometer, however, they created a situation where I was left with no options… „

In response to Azonnali s question as to whether he regretted Dull s dismissal, Mr Bodolai said absolutely not, arguing that „I didn t tear up Index, they imposed an impossible condition on me.”