EXCLUSIV The lawsuit of "Roman Copper" is blocking the privatization of "Cupru Min"

• Interview with Joel Hayes, the president of "Roman Copper" Canada

The Romanian authorities did not notify "Roman Copper" concerning the current status of the privatization process of Cupru Min. Joel Hayes, the president of the Canadian company, gave us the following exclusive statement: "The current privatization process has not been completed and so far, we have not received any official notification from the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Business Environment or from the OPSPI specifying their position on the matter. At any rate, before the date when the current privatization process will be completed - either amicably, by following the natural route, or in court - we can not talk about beginning a new privatization process".

Roman Copper Corp., the Canadian company whose bid was selected as the winner of the call for tenders organized by the OPSPI (the Office of the State's Interests and Industrial Privatization) for the sale of Cupru Min Abrud SA, has sued the Romanian state. The company claims that the OPSPI has unilaterally ceased the discussions for the completion of the privatization procedure of Cupru Min. The Romanian authorities claim that the privatization has failed because the negotiations with Roman Copper did not conclude within the legal delay and has announced that the call for bids will be resumed.

Joel Hayes, the president of the Canadian company, has said that the privatization procedure was made through an open outcry auction, not through negotiations. As a result, being called the winner of the call for bids, Roman Copper only held talks concerning the completion of the privatization. "At any rate, 10 days (ed. note: the period mentioned by the Ministry of the Economy as being allocated to the negotiations for the signing of the final contract) does not represent a reasonable deadline for the completion of the talks around such a complex contract", the president of Roman Copper.

The only reason why the contract was not signed was the refusal of the Ministry of the Economy and of the OPSPI to make formal, the completion of the privatization procedure by signing the contract, in spite of all the repeated requests of the Canadian company, Joel Hayes went on to say.

He also said: "I also want to emphasize that being in the presence of an open outcry auction, no negotiations were carried out, but only final discussions prior to the signing of the contract. Even though the talks initially had a normal course, on April 6th, in violation of any notion of good-faith and of any rules concerning privatization, we were notified that the signing was supposed to take place on the same day and additional conditions were demanded, including the amendment of non-negotiable terms". The president of Roman Copper mentioned that , in spite of the fact that the officials of the Canadian company showed up to sign the document, the authorities inexplicably refused to make the document available to them for signing, and the Romanian party is currently refusing the signing.

After the completion of the call for bids, on March 26th, Roman Copper Corp. was declared the winner by the Romanian government, except the OPSPI decided, after ten days of negotiations, not to sign the contract with the Canadian company. The OPSPI announced that no contract for the sale of Cupru Min, because the deadline for its signing expired on April 6th, at midnight, by which time the two parties had failed to reach an agreement on the terms of the contract.

The Romanian party claims that it has asked the Canadian company to set up a collateral deposit of 32.27 million Euros, to guarantee the making of the environment investments and to pay the price of the share, of 200.7 million Euros, within 30 days from obtaining the license of the Competition Council and the integrated environmental authorization - with both being suspensive conditions in the contract. The Romanian party also asked the immediate publication of the privatization contract.