PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION The CNVM has suspended the operation of WBS Romania

• The auditors of the company were unable to express an opinion on the resources of the company, because they received insufficient information from the management

• The CNVM has withdrawn the approval of Cristian Sima to serve as director of Sibex

The CNVM yesterday suspended the activity of brokerage firm WBS Romania, as a result of the investigation which was initiated after the scandal caused by broker Cristian Sima fleeing the country.

The measure is a precautionary one, and the suspension may not lat longer than two weeks, according to the Commission, which requires "WBS Romania" to inform investors about the rights they have.

The ordinance of the CNVM is an interim result of the investigation of WBS Romania, which was initiated after broker Cristian Sima, former CEO of Sibex and prior to that, former shareholder of WBS Romania, fled the country after later admitting that he had lost his clients' money.

The CNVM publicly announced that WBS Holding, the offshore that Sima was operating through, registered in the British Virgin Islands, was not an entity under its supervision.

However, there was information that Sima secretly continued to control WBS Romania, a company which was under the supervision of the CNVM, even though he left the shareholder structure of the company when he became the CEO of the Sibiu Exchange.

Moreover, some of the customers of WBS Romania said that the requests to close their accounts with WBS Romania were turned down.

CNVM also says that it has asked SSIF "WBS Romania" to conduct an audit - using both the company's internal auditor, as well as the financial auditor - of the financial resources it had available on October 11th, 2012, which belonged to the clients, and to the company itself. The deadline for filing the audit reports with the headquarters of the CNVM was October 22nd, 2012.

However, the CNVM says that the common report of the auditors says that, due to the insufficient information made available by the management of WBS Romania, they are unable to express an opinion on the company's accounts on the date of October 11th, 2012.

The Commission already had some data on file about WBS Romania from last year, when it levied fines of a total of 5,5500 lei against five employees of the brokerage firm, including Anca Bunea, the director of the company, after uncovering several irregularities, including fraudulent practices, following the investigation.

Last week, the CNVM withdrew the authorization of representative of the Internal Audit Department of Dan Constantin Vătămanu, on behalf of brokerage firm WBS Romania SA. The Commission also states that the decision was made considering the request formulated by WBS Romania on September 28th, 2012, just before the "Sima" scandal broke out.

In many letters and televised speeches, broker Cristian Sima said that he fled because he had received threats. He admitted that he had lost his clients' money after exceeding the mandate some of them had given him.

Anca Bunea, the director of WBS Romania, resigned last week, from the position of president of the Romanian Clearing House of Sibiu, part of the Sibex group.