Chief supervisor Dušan Hočevar told the press after the session that the dismissal was confirmed unanimously after a thorough discussion on reports drafted by the management. An interim management headed by Matjaž Knez was appointed today.

Hočevar did not want exclude criminal and financial liability of Duhovnik and Bošković. The supervisors found that the pair were in severe violation of their obligations as managers by failing to act with due diligence.

The supervisors found major violations in relation to problems related to contractors' failure to pay subcontractors building Slovenia's motorways and DARS's decision to pay some EUR 74,000 to one of the subcontractors directly, which put it in a privileged position.

Moreover, the management failed to meet it obligations when signing a construction protocol with Austrian company Alpine Bau for Markovec tunnel between the coastal towns of Koper and Izola.

Hočevar said the management did not act in line with regulations, limiting the rights of subcontractors in this case.

Irregularities were also found in a contract with the city of Ljubljana on monitoring services for traffic lights at a roundabout on Ljubljana's northern bypass.

The supervisors moreover found violations in a compensation case related to construction of an overpass on the Dolenjsko motorway. In this case, the failure to act with due diligence was already found by the Court of Audits in December 2010.

The interim management will take over tomorrow morning, while a call for bids for a new management will be published in a month.

Knez, the boss of Maribor-based ZIM construction company and former state secretary at the Transport Ministry (2000-2004), will be joined by Tine Svoljšak, an auditor at KPMG company, as a member of the interim board.

Business daily Finance reported that Knez had ties to Maribor Mayor Franc Kangler and one of the advisor to Infrastructure and Spatial Planning Minister Zvonko Černač.

Duhovnik took over at DARS as acting chairman in September 2009. A month later she was appointed chairman for five years. Before that Duhovnik was a member of the supervisory board, which she also chaired for a period.

The move comes less than a month after DARS supervisory board was overhauled in late May.