FORMER RECEIVER OF HIDROELECTRICA Remus Borza, indicted for for conflict of interest

The former receiver of Hidroelectrica, Remus Borza, is being indicted, together with his business associate (ed. note: Nicoleta Munteanu) for conflict of interest, said Ionuţ Oprea, spokesperson of the Prosecutor's Office of the Bucharest Court of Appeal. The complaint was forwarded by the National Integrity Agency (ANI), in February this year, he said.

The resolution for beginning the criminal pursuit filed by prosecutors states that Euro Insol - the insolvency company in which Remus Borza holds a stake equal to that of Nicoleta Munteanu, in its role of receiver of Hidrolectrica, made payments to law firm Borza and Associates (in which Remus Borza holds 95% and Nicoleta Munteanu - 5%), based on 34 aid legal assistance contracts concluded between November 2012 - February 2013.

According to the resolution, Nicoleta Munteanu, a legal representative of Euro Insol SPRL - concluded legal counsel contracts with the insolvency firm and Borza and Associates for representing, drafting, signing and filing the papers for several civil lawsuits currently pending with the Court of Bucharest, in which SC Hidroelectrica was a party. The prosecutors claim that the two lawyers were part of a conflict of interest according to the Criminal code of law, and the law of insolvency practitioners, as they obtained material benefits from the 34 contracts. The amounts pertaining to these contracts were paid by Hidroelectrica.

According to article 253 index 1 of the Criminal Code of Law, "the deed of the public servant who, while exercising their job duties, carries out an act or participates in the making of a decision by which they stand to directly or indirectly obtain any material benefits for themselves or for their spouse or any of their relatives of up to the second degree included, or for another person that they have been involved with in commercial or work relations over the last 5 years or from whom they have received or are currently receiving services or any kind of benefits, is punishable by 6 months to 5 years and the prohibition of the right to hold a public office for a the maximum allowed period of time".

In mid-January this year, Remus Borza said, in an interview granted to the BURSA newspaper: "The receiver of Hidroelectrica, Euro Insol, a company in which I am a partner, has hired, in the name of Euro Insol, the law firms Borza and Asociaţii, Piperea and Asociates and law firm Dana Ionescu for the 74 lawsuits which the company has against its creditors. I have selected the lawyers of Borza and Associates because they are upstanding and good professionals and they have constantly provided legal consultancy to Euro Insol in all the measures it has taken when it comes to the reorganization of Hidroelectrica. On October 25th, 2012, the committee of the creditors of Hidroelectrica approved, unanimously, the hiring of the three law-firms. The approved fee was 3,000 Euros for each case. Thus, the total amount was 220,000 Euros, which was paltry compared to the huge amount which is at stake, 420 million Euros in damages which are being requested and the over 1 billion Euros in profits lost by the < clever boys > until December 31st, 2018, due to the denouncement of the contracts. The fee is humiliating and shameful if we consider the amounts at stake and when considering the fact that in reality we are talking about a fee which covers two stages of the lawsuit, namely the first instance and the appeal. Any other law firm would have asked a success fee of at least 5% of the amount of the requested receivables. You do realize that we are speaking of fees of at least a few tens of millions of Euros if that were the case".

In February, prime-minister Victor Ponta said that he did not agree with the fact that the receiver of Hidroelectrica, Remus Borza, awarded contracts to his own law-firm, to represent the company in court. He said that he can only "disagree with the idea from a moral point of view", because "the law allows this", and claimed that the law of insolvency should be changed to eliminate this type of conflict of interests and "other schemes of defrauding the state".