Vienna/Budapest  - The Chief Executive of Austrian energy firm OMV said Thursday that his company would not back off from plans to takeover Hungarian peer MOL after OMV failed to block any of the MOL board's proposals at an AGM held Wednesday.

"We have no intention of selling our 20-per-cent stake in MOL," the Austria Press Agency quoted Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer as telling journalists in Vienna. "We always said that this will take two to three years."

OMV has been attempting to force a merger since last summer, when it upped its stake in MOL to 20.2 per cent and offered an above-market-value price of 32,000 Hungarian forints (199 dollars) per MOL share.

MOL, however, shored up its defences by buying back shares and lending them to friendly banks and institutions to circumvent a 10- per-cent limit on voting rights.

The board is now believed to control around 45 per cent of the voting rights through the manoeuvre.

OMV had been hoping to put pressure on MOL to dismantle some of the defences and reveal its shareholder structure at the AGM.

However, the MOL board pushed through its proposals, which included lifting a limit the treasury share buyback limit from 10 per cent to 25 per cent and re-electing Chairman and Chief Executive Zsolt Hernadi and Chief Executive Gyorgy Mosonyi.

Ruttenstorfer was angry that OMV could not prevent the motions being passed and accused the board of serving its own interests.

"MOL's management has used company assets to strengthen their position," he said.

The Austrian firm said it could turn to the courts to question the validity of the resolutions.

"OMV is considering challenging before the courts the validity of several resolutions that were approved with the support of management-friendly shareholders and against the interest of MOL's independent shareholders," the company said in a statement Wednesday.

The Hungarian government also became embroiled in the takeover saga last year, passing a law aimed at protecting "strategic" companies such as MOL from foreign takeover.

Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said it was a matter of national sovereignty, as OMV is part-owned by the Austrian government.

The European Commission is currently examining the validity of the law. (dpa)