IMPARȚIALITATE·INTEGRITATE·EFICIENȚĂ
December, 15th, 2010
No. 687/VIII/3
Press release
The prosecutors within the National Anticorruption Directorate sent to trial the following defendants:
DAN MIHAI TOADER, President of the Board of Administration and general manager of the Romanian National Post Company S.A. (C.N.P.R. S.A.), who was charged with the following offences:
- abuse of office against the public interests, with extremely serious consequences, if the civil servant obtained for himself or for another a patrimonial advantage,
- deliberately establishing a diminished value compared to the real market value for goods under the property of the public institutions, with the occasion of a commercial transaction,
LEPĂDATU EMANOIL, executive economic director of C.N.P.R. S.A., who was charged with the offence of deliberately establishing a diminished value compared to the real market value for goods under the property of the public institutions, with the occasion of a commercial transaction,
MARINESCU ANDREI, executive director of the Strategic Development Direction within C.N.P.R. S.A., who was charged with the following offences:
- abuse of office against the public interests, with extremely serious consequences, if the civil servant obtained for himself or for another a patrimonial advantage,
- deliberately establishing a diminished value compared to the real market value for goods under the property of the public institutions, with the occasion of a commercial transaction,
NAGY ZSOLT, former Minister of Communications and Information Technology, who was charged with the offence of abuse of office against the public interests, with extremely serious consequences, if the civil servant obtained for himself or for another a patrimonial advantage,
CHIUARIU TUDOR – ALEXANDRU, former Minister of Justice, who was charged with the offence of abuse of office against the public interests, with extremely serious consequences, if the civil servant obtained for another a patrimonial advantage,
FOLFĂ IOAN, administrator of S.C. TOPCADEX 99 S.R.L., who was charged with the offence of forgery of private documents committed in connection with a corruption offence.
The indictment drawn up by the prosecutors stated the following facts:
During 2005 – 2007, as a result of a series of illegal acts, the representatives of the Romanian National Post Company contributed to the selling of a real estate asset which was under the public property of the Romanian State to the private property of S.C. IMOPOST DEVELOPEMENTS S.A. The two members of the Government were involved in this illegal activity, considering that they issued a normative act, meant to "clarify" the legal statute of the piece of land and thus, to favor the company S.C. IMOPOST DEVELOPMENTS S.A.
As a result, the Romanian State suffered a prejudice of 8,619,787 euro.
S.C. IMOPOST DEVELOPEMENTS S.A. was set up on June 26th 2005, as a partnership between C.N.P.R. S.A., S.C. PROCEMA S.A., S.C. COMNORD S.A. and two natural persons. The purpose for setting up S.C. IMOPOST DEVELOPMENTS S.A. was for this company to demolish the existing buildings on the piece of land from Bucharest, 133-135 Calea Victoriei, and to build real estate assets with multiple functions. On July 19th 2005, the management of the Romanian Post approved for the real estate asset from 133-135 Calea Victoriei, to be brought by C.N.P.R S.A. as in kind contribution to the social capital of the new set up company.
All this activity was carried out in order to favor the concern S.C. PROCEMA S.A. - S.C. COMNORD S.A. so, in 2005, the support granted to the concern was oriented in two directions: ignoring the fact that the real estate asset from Calea Victoriei was under the public property of the state and under evaluating it.
Thus, when the real estate asset came as a contribution to the social capital of S.C. IMOPOST S.A., the defendants Toader Dan Mihai, Lepădatu Emanoil and Marinescu Andrei, in their capacities as general manager, executive economic director and, respectively, director of the Strategic Development Direction, they under evaluated the real estate asset from 133-135 Calea Victoriei, deliberately establishing a diminished value compared to its real market value.
The effective transfer of the real estate asset from the patrimony of the Romanian Post to that of IMOPOST had to be accompanied by an evaluation of the piece of land and so, the company of the defendant Folfă Ioan, S.C. TOPCADEX 99 S.R.L., drew up an Evaluation report for this piece of land, on July 21st 2005. The report established a significant diminished value compared to the real market value of the real estate asset, the resulted difference from this under evaluation being of 3,652,244 euro. Considering the fact that such an evaluation report had to be drawn up by a judicial expert and the defendant Folfă Ioan did not have this quality, he modified the report, he signed it in false, in the place of an expert from his company and he used the latter’s judicial expert stamp. Both Folfă Ioan and the expert had previously had collaborations with S.C. PROCEMA S.A. and S.C. COMNORD S.A., and the defendant Lepădatu Emanoil, in his capacity as president of the commission which had to select the tenders for the evaluation services, he made sure that S.C. TOPCADEX 99 S.R.L. would evaluate the piece of land, so that the real estate asset would be evaluated by a company close to the consortium and thus, practically guarantying its under evaluation.
Considering that there was a legal dispute pending at the Court of Appeal regarding the right of property of the Romanian Post on the respective piece of land, that it was under the public property of the state and thus it couldn’t have been sold, the defendant Nagy Zsolt, in his capacity as Minister of Communications and Information Technology, he initiated and approved the draft of a Government Decision meant to clarify this issue. This Minister coordinated the activity of the Romanian Post, by virtue of the fact that, until 2006, the Romanian state, through the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, was a sole shareholder of C.N.P.R. S.A., and starting with 2006, a major shareholder.
The defendant Zsolt Nagy drew up the fundamental note and the draft of the Government Decision no. 377/2007 meant to amend the Government Decision no. 550/1996, regarding the transfer of the real estate asset located in Bucharest, under the administration of the National Company "the Romanian Post" - S.A. This Government Decision established the fact that, "the real estate asset covered by this act did not have a public destination and it was not used by the public or for its interest" and the word "public" is eliminated from the Government Decision 550/1996. Practically, Zsolt Nagy initiated a Government Decision with a retroactive character on the right of property for the real estate asset from 133-135 Calea Victoriei, in order to promote the private interests of the consortium formed of S.C. PROCEMA S.A. and S.C. COMNORD S.A.
Shorty after, his homologue from the Ministry of Justice, the defendant Chiuariu Tudor Alexandru approved this draft of Government Decision, ignoring the opinion expressed by the specialists under his subordination who had stated that such an action would be illegal.
The two ministers approved this project urgently, by eluding the legal provisions regulating the procedure of approving the normative acts and also the legal provisions establishing that the transfer of real estate assets from the public property to the private property of the state could be accomplished only as a result of a decision stipulating this thing expressly.
Nevertheless, on April 25th 2007, the Government of Romania adopted the Government Decision no. 377/2007, thus approving for good and all, the transfer of the real estate asset under the private property of the state. As a result, S.C. IMOPOST DEVELOPMENTS S.A. obtained a patrimonial advantage consisting of the right of property on the real estate asset from 133-135 Calea Victoriei and indirectly, the consortium S.C. PROCEMA S.A. - S.C. COMNORD S.A. obtained the benefits resulted after the under evaluation of the real estate asset when it came as a contribution to the social capital of S.C. IMOPOST DEVELOPMENTS S.A.
The prejudice caused to the Romanian state as a result of the illegal transfer of the real estate asset from 133-135 Calea Victoriei which was under the public property of the state is of 8,619,787 euro, representing the real market value of the piece of land. The prejudice was calculated taking into account the value of the piece of land without any buildings, minus the demolishing cost, since the existing buildings were demolished by S.C. IMOPOST S.A.
On September 17th 2007, the Chief Prosecutor of the National Anticorruption Directorate (D.N.A) submitted to the President of Romania, based on articles 12, 16 section 2 and article 19 of the Law no. 115/1999 republished, concerning the ministerial accountability, the request regarding the start of the criminal investigation against Zsolt Nagy - Minister of Communications and Information Technology and Chiuariu Tudor Alexandru – Minister of Justice.
On January 16th 2008, the President of Romania requested the Interim Minister of Justice to start the legal proceedings for the criminal investigation against Zsolt Nagy - former Minister of Communications and Information Technology and Chiuariu Tudor Alexandru - former Minister of Justice.
The file was sent to the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
It is worth mentioning that according to the Criminal Procedure Code, this is the final stage of the criminal investigation when the indictment is sent to court for trial and this situation cannot, in any way, infringe the principle of presumption of innocence.
THE INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE