The statement comes after the Ljubljana District State Prosecution announced yesterday it had rejected the charges of abuse of insider information brought by the ATVP against Gorenje and its chairman Franjo Bobinac.

The ATVP said today it did not agree with the prosecution's decision but would honour it nevertheless. The decision runs contrary to the practice of other European regulators, the agency said.

So far, the ATVP has filed four criminal complaints against five individuals and a legal entity over the alleged abuse of insider information in connection to this due diligence process, the agency said.

The ATVP suspects that three entities illegally disclosed insider information and three illegally obtained it and abused it to buy Gorenje shares.

Based on an ATVP decree, one person has already returned the assets that had been suspected to be gained based on abuse of insider information, the agency added.

"The ATVP continues to conduct control activities in this matter and continues to obtain and analyse numerous data, including those it received from 14 countries."

The watchdog filed the charges against Gorenje and Bobinac in August 2016 after the deal between the Gorenje management and Panasonic on the due diligence raised a lot of dust in Slovenia.

Gorenje upset the public also by delaying the notification of the public about the developments. Bobinac informed Prime Minister Miro Cerar of the due diligence five days before the news was made public.

After the due diligence was conducted, Panasonic decided not to take over Gorenje.