Employees of Electrica Oltenia to go to court over right to buy shares in the company

Due to a legislative error, employees of Electrica Oltenia can not buy the 10% stake in the company which they are entitled to, even though the law stipulates this right for the divisions of Electrica which were bought by Enel and E.ON following privatization of the company. The law that regulates this right for the employees of Electrica omitted extending the deadline for acquiring shares in the Oltenia division, which was acquired by CEZ.

Adolf Mureşan, chairman of the Univers union federation, said: "We will take the public institutions which are responsible for this error to court. Even now, we are discussing our available options with our lawyers, because the Ministry of the Economy claims that it can"t the law and it is required to sell the remainder of its stake in the Oltenia division of Electrica to majority shareholder CEZ. Employees of Electrica requested the right to buy 10% of the company two years ago".

He said that he will go to court to request the ownership of the 10% stake in Electrica Oltenia. The deadline for the acquisition of shares in the divisions acquired by Enel and E.ON is December 31, 2010. The employees of Electrica Oltenia consider that the sale of the shares to CEZ constitutes a major breach of their rights and are decided to seek justice with the Romanian and international courts of law.

Unionists claim that over 55,000 former and current employees are entitled to shares in Electrica. The workers have created two non-profit associations and have raised significant amounts for acquiring the shares.

Leaders of the Univers Federation and of the National Union Block (BNS) have repeatedly accused the authorities that they are deliberately delaying the drawing up of the norms for the application of the law concerning the sale of shares towards employees of Electrica.