According to the commission, the two children of SDS officials, Nika Janša and Tadej Tanko, did not meet the employment conditions under Plinovodi's job classification and the selection procedure was discriminatory to other job seekers.

As high-ranking politicians, Janša and Tanko can influence appointments in the management of the state-owned gas company, the commission notes in its report, published on Wednesday.

With the employments, the commission said the people responsible at the company "violated their due care". The commission also investigated whether the violations were the result of illegal influence on the management of Plinovodi.

The report says that Plinovodi general manager Marjan Eberlinc admitted in an interview with the commission that there were attempts to influence the hiring procedures "although without naming names and only hypothetically".

At the same time, he underlined several times the dependency of a company such as Plinovodi on the decisions made by the government, according to the report.

The report also said that Eberlinc admitted "a mistake had been made and that it (the mistake) was inadmissible and he placed it in context of state ownership of the company and the need for strategic development of the company".

The commission says in the report that Janša did not meet all the requirements for the job, while several other candidates did. However, only Janša was invited to an interview.

Plinovodi responded to the report, saying that the company had not acted in a discriminatory or corruptive manner. Plinovodi also said it did not see itself as a majority state-owned company.

The commission said in the report that Plinovodi was a subsidiary of state-owned gas distributer Geoplin and that both companies were listed by the Economic Development and Technology Ministry as companies in which the state holds a majority or controlling stake.

Plinovodi said it provided an extensive explanation to the commission, but the watchdog "unfortunately failed to accept our arguments. We insist that we did not act in a discriminatory way when inviting for interviews only candidates that met the requirements stated in the call for applications and that [we did] also not act in a corruptive manner."

The watchdog launched the investigation into the hiring of Tanko and Janša upon receiving an anonymous report on 28 August 2012.

As part of the investigation, the national Labour Inspectorate was also informed of suspected violations. The inspectorate performed an inquiry and informed the commission that it had found several irregularities.

Plinovodi said today that the company had already amended its bylaws in line with the inspectorate's directive.

When providing explanations to the commission, Plinovodi said that there were no signs of corruption in the hiring processes. The company was not promised or given any benefits in exchange for hiring Janša, Plinovodi also told the commission.

Tanko got the job for which a total of three candidates applied, while Janša was selected out of seven candidates.

The SDS said it would not respond today, pointing out that PM Janez Janša had already answered questions from MPs about the employment of his daughter. He told the MPs in December that Nika Janša had not been hired due to nepotism and that she had been an excellent student.