The battle for the management of Sibex moves to the courtrooms

The fight for the top position of the Sibiu Exchange moves to the courtrooms, just two weeks after Cristian Sima successfully replaced Teodor Ancuţa at the top of Sibex and the shareholders of the company elected a new Board of Directors.

Nicolae Vaidescu, one of the major shareholders of the Sibiu Exchange, who holds about 5% of the company, together with "International ESI" and "WK Group" SRL have sued the Sibiu Exchange, requesting the annulment of the decision to elect a new Board of Directors.

Mr. Vaidescu said: "We have requested the annulment of the decision to elect a new Board of Directors, for several reasons. One of them would be that the General Shareholder Meeting was not held fairly".

The first hearing of the lawsuit was held on Wednesday, and the next hearing has been set for June 6th.

A group of shareholders of Sibex, together with Alexandru Elian, the head of brokerage firm "Delta Valori Mobiliare", has requested the revocation of the old Board of Directors and the election of a new one through the cumulative voting method.

A similar move had been attempted at the end of last year, but the contesters failed to overthrow the management of Sibex. Moreover, at the time, Cristian Sima lost his spot on the Board of the Sibiu Exchange.

The wheel seems to have turned for Cristian Sima, at the last General Shareholder Meeting of the Sibiu Exchange, when he was elected as Chairman of the Board, thus foiling the plans of Teodor Ancuţa, who had proposed Irishman Patrick Young as his successor to the executive management of the Exchange. Ancuţa had proposed the separation of the positions of president and general manager of Sibex, in order to prepare it for the merger with the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

The haste of Nicolae Vaidescu in suing Sibex, requesting the revocation of the decisions of the General Shareholder Meeting, shows that the struggle between the two factions is far from over. And that is just as the new Board of Directors of the Sibiu Exchange hasn"t even been validated by the Romanian National Securities Commission (CNVM) yet, as only two weeks have passed since the election.

The statements concerning this lawsuit do not mention the reasons behind it.