The State v. Maj Holdings (1999) was the criminal negligence prosecution arising from the 1998 Cetingrad Steelworks Incident, in which Blast Furnace No. 4 at the Maj Steel Cetingrad Complex killed seven workers and severely burned forty-one others. The case was heard in the District VIII Court in Zahodecelska — the same district whose politics were dominated by Vjetrusa Senator Misko Maretic.
Background
A Council for Development inquiry found that Maj Holdings had deferred eleven pressure-valve replacements flagged in 1998 and that municipal safety oversight under Mayor Said Klopje had been gutted. Prosecutors charged the corporation with criminal negligence causing death. Bran Maj was never personally indicted; former mayor Klopje faced no criminal charges after resigning and fleeing to Ravna Skrad.
Northern Power organisers and the families of the dead demanded manslaughter counts against named managers. The District VIII prosecutor’s office narrowed the indictment to a corporate negligence theory, citing “insufficient personalised mens rea.”
Holding
The District Court ruled 5–2 that Maj Holdings was guilty of criminal negligence. Two Justices would have acquitted for lack of a specific corporate mens rea standard under industrial-safety statutes then in force.
Result:
- Fine: ₭4.2 million (widely mocked as less than a week’s export revenue from the Cetingrad complex)
- No imprisonment of officers or directors
- No operating ban, nationalisation, or forced receivership
- No personal liability for Bran Maj
- Civil wrongful-death settlements with the seven families were negotiated out of court and sealed; reported ranges were ₭80,000–₭120,000 per estate — never confirmed on the record
An Appellate Tribunal leave application by bereaved families seeking to reopen personal liability was denied without a published vote.
Legacy
Critics — including then Assembly Chair Ljubo Sanjakorin — accused Maretic’s district machine of suppressing a harder Chamber for Development report and ensuring a fine-only outcome. The verdict became a founding grievance of Cetingrad’s Northern Power chapter under Silvija Bujan. Catalogue: Landmark Cases.