The Hungarian police have been investigating a case concerning cooking oil producer Bunge since the end of October, the police’s communications department informed. An investigation was ordered on October 21, after news portal index.hu published an article about the US-owned company present in Hungary. The portal said that companies close to the government had approached Bunge offering the company the possibility of a strategic agreement in exchange for „channeling back part of the funding provided under the agreement”. The portal said that the case related to Bunge was one of those that resulted in the US entry ban. Bunge said on October 31 that it has met in full its obligations under Hungarian tax requirements and is not the subject of any VAT fraud investigation, dismissing allegations in the press. The public prosecutor’s office informed that it had made a request for legal assistance to the US justice department in connection with an ongoing criminal case. The office did not detail the content of the request but said that it was related to an earlier request made on October 27 by public prosecutor Peter Polt concerning details of a US entry ban of several Hungarian officials. The public prosecutor’s office also said they made the new request prior to US charge d’affaires Andre Goodfriend’s reply. „No substantive information was forthcoming”, the office said about the reply. Mr Goodfriend announced on October 20 that the US had banned six Hungarian government officials from entering the United States. His announcement came after the daily Napi Gazdasag reported of a US entry ban affecting several Hungarian government officials, linking it to tax investigations against several US-owned companies located in Hungary. Late November Hungary’s tax office NAV said it had conducted two investigations based on a report by the Hungarian unit of US company Bunge, one on sowing seed in 2011 and another one affecting the food industry in 2013. The office made the statement after Hungarian website hvg.hu reported that Bunge had provided the office with specific, detailed information on suspected VAT fraud in a report sent to NAV early 2012.