IMPARȚIALITATE·INTEGRITATE·EFICIENȚĂ
July, 13th, 2015
No. 1254/VIII/3
PRESS RELEASE
In the criminal file presented in the press release no. 1026/VIII/3 from June 5th 2015, regarding alleged offences assimilated to those of corruption committed to the energy companies Turceni and Rovinari in connection with the closing of several legal assistance contracts, the Office for Information and Public Relations is authorized to state as follows:
The prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Directorate – the Section for Combating the Offences Assimilated to Those of Corruption, have ordered the launch of the criminal action against the defendant PONTA VICTOR-VIOREL, who was a lawyer at the time the offences were committed, the legal representative of the Private Legal Practice “Ponta Victor-Viorel” and who is currently the Prime Minister of Romania. Ponta Victor-Viorel has been charged with the following offences:
- forgery of documents using the personal signature (17 offences)
- complicity to tax evasion committed through repeated acts
- money laundering
The prosecutors’ ordinance shows that there are data and clues leading to the reasonable suspicion that a significant amount of the money obtained by SCA “Şova and Associates” from the two energy companies (Turceni and Rovinari) was meant exclusively for the personal interest of Şova Dan-Coman and his entourage.
On May 6th 2015, while investigating the aspects regarding the contractual connections of the law firm SCA “Şova and Associates”, the prosecutors ordered the relevant fiscal authority to submit all the existing documents regarding the fiscal inspections conducted at the private legal practice “Ponta Victor Viorel”.
Once these documents were analyzed, taking into consideration the evidence that had already been gathered, the following state of facts resulted:
On August 30th 2007, a professional collaboration agreement was concluded between SCA “Şova and Associates” represented by Şova Dan-Coman and the Private Legal Practice “Ponta Victor-Viorel” represented by Ponta Victor-Viorel. The object of this agreement was for the two parties to collaborate in the cases dealing with penal issues, business criminal law, as well as other cases if necessary. The agreement was concluded for an unlimited period of time and for the professional activities conducted in collaboration it provided for the fees to be received by the law firm and the lawyer Ponta Victor-Viorel had to receive a fixed amount of €2,000, for which the latter had to issue a monthly invoice.
Starting with April 2008, an addendum to the agreement was introduced increasing the amount to €3,000 /month as fee for the lawyer Ponta Victor-Viorel.
The collaboration agreement ended in December 2008 when Ponta Victor-Viorel became a minister.
For the alleged activities conducted in collaboration, the lawyer Ponta Victor-Viorel issued a number of 17 fiscal invoices amounting to 181,439.98 lei during October 2007 - December 2008.
The invoices were submitted for settlement to the law firm SCA “Şova and Associates” which paid after registering them into the accounting books. The amounts for the 17 invoices represent expenditures which are not based on real operations, considering that, in fact, Ponta Victor-Viorel did not perform any professional activity based on this collaboration agreement. Şova Dan-Coman was the only person entitled to issue orders regarding any actions of any nature involving the law firm.
Subsequently, after several fiscal controls conducted during May – October 2011, Ponta Victor-Viorel had an understanding with Şova Dan-Coman for the latter to draw up legal activity reports within the law firm, activities allegedly performed by Ponta Victor-Viorel, during the 16 months representing the duration of the collaboration agreement.
Considering that Ponta Victor-Viorel’s legal training was in criminal law, it was decided for these activities to involve legal assistance in criminal cases in connection with the clients of the law firm.
Thus, during August 2011, 16 such documents were drawn up corresponding to each month from the interval September 2007 - December 2008.
The 16 documents falsified by Ponta Victor-Viorel were typed using copy-paste after the pattern of the documents regarding the legal activity carried out by several lawyers from SCA “Şova and Associates”, lawyers who stated that they had never collaborated with Ponta Victor-Viorel. In reality, Ponta Victor-Viorel did not perform any of those activities, not even in part.
Ponta Victor-Viorel used some of the money received from SCA “Şova and Associates” to buy two luxury apartments in a residential complex located in Bucharest.
During November 11th 2008 - June 2009, Ponta Victor-Viorel had also other benefits from the law firm, consisting in being given the right to use for free a vehicle Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 10. During all this time, the law firm paid the down payment (37,027.41 lei), the leasing installments (approximately 6,000 lei/month) and other fees to the leasing company, amounting to 79,641.11 lei.
In June 2009, Ponta Victor-Viorel took over the leasing for the car without paying any money to the law firm.
The car was purchased by the law firm “Şova and Associates”, following Ponta Victor-Viorel’s express request.
In this case, the prosecutors have ordered the seizing of the movable and immovable assets belonging to the defendant Ponta Victor-Viorel.
The defendant Ponta Victor-Viorel was informed about his legal status and charges, according to the provisions of article 309 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
It should be mentioned that the start of the criminal action represents a stage of the criminal proceedings regulated by the Criminal Procedure Code, carried out in order to create the procedural framework for gathering of evidence, an activity which cannot, under any circumstances, infringe the principle of presumption of innocence.
THE INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICE