Attorney of the State

Seven law firms will be able to represent the Romanian state at the Washington International Court of Arbitration of the World Bank. The consortium formed by the Tuca&Asociates law firm and White&Case have been assigned as the state attorneys in the litigation with EDF, and NNKDP and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer will represent Romania in the lawsuit against the Micula brothers.

After the auction organized by the Ministry of Public Finances, which was considered ambiguous by some people, the Romanian state has a list of seven consortia and law firms which could represent Romania at the International Centre for the Settlement of the Investment Related Disputes (ICSID) of the World Bank. The lawyers will defend Romania’s economical interests as well as its image. This is a few million dollars stake for the state as well as for the law firms.

THE COURT. A group of seven firms was created this way, a group of seven valid consortia that will represent the state at the Arbitration Court. Each of the seven firms will be named for each case by the MPF afterwards without any other auction. The choosing of the firms is very ambiguous because the regulations regarding this matter as well as the order of Minister of Finances, Sebastian Vladescu, are very ambiguous. "The selection of the seven law firms has been made indeed by the MPF (after an ambiguous and totally "opaque" auction), but I hope that the involved public institutions will prove to be correct in choosing the commissioned lawyers that will defend the country’s interest in Washington", Gheroghe Musat, associate lawyer at Musat&Asssociates, stated. At present, according to the ICSID webpage, Romania is involved in four trials at the International Arbitration Court. One of them is the continuation of the Noble Ventures trials, for which the MPF is yet to choose the attorneys. In exchange, the consortium formed by the Tuca&Associates and White&Case LLP law firms has been named to defend the Romanian state in the trial with EDF, which started in 2004. According to Cornel Popa, lawyer at Tuca&Associates, the first hearing took place this week.

DUTY-FREE. The story of the trial is much older. In 1992, EDF Services LTD and SKY Services LTD associated with TAROM and the Otopeni-Bucharest International Airport, for a period of ten years, merging into EDF Asro LTD and SKY Services (Romania) LTD. EDF took care of the administration of the duty-free shops in the Otopeni Airport. In 1998, the Customs’ administration suspended the authorizations for EDF for accounting irregularities, and, in 2001, TAROM broke the partnership with EDF. EDF owner, Rick Weil stated afterwards for Financial Times that the Adrian Nastase cabinet head asked 2.5 million US dollars as bribe, in 2001. In September 2002, the Government adopted a decree that interdicted the existence of all the duty-free shops in the airport. Accused of breaking the bilateral agreements between Romania and the German Federal Republic and between Romania and Israel, the Nastase administration has been sued by Canadian law firm Appleton &Associates.

THE MICULA BROTHERS. The Micula brothers, who also have Swedish citizenship, put the law on the Romanian state after the Romanian authorities annulled several facilities for the European Drinks Group for the investments in the under-privileged areas. Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have been chosen by the MPF to represent the state in this case. Starting from the 10th of January, Romania has been involved in another lawsuit in which the complainant is Spyridon Roussalis, owner of Marine Continental.

MILLIONS. These law firms, chosen to defend Romania in Washington, have worked with the state before and they received important sums in honorariums, or have represented Romanian or foreign companies in privatization trials, great transactions or in litigations. With approximately 200 clients and a turnover that got nine times greater than in 2000, according to Doru Bostina, Bostina & Associates had clients like the Romanian Post, Postelecom, Cosmote, MCTI, Intrarom, Intracom or the Romania Lottery. "Business law is more than simply law", Manuela Nestor, partner at NNDKP, says. She says that not referring only to the law firm’s turnover, estimated at 7 million euros in 2005, but to the development of the business-law market in our country during the past years. NNDKP clients? Great names like Microsoft, Philip Morris or OMV for the Petrom takeover, as well as the Romanian state for the BCR privatization. Honorariums? The law firms don’t jump to saying the sums they cash in. "From hundreds to thousands of euros", Manuela Nestor says. It depends.

TRANSACTIONS. The amount of transactions varies from one year to the other as well, according to Gheorghe Musat. "There have been years in which the value of the transaction went over 1 billion US dollars, like in the year of the SIDEX privatization, where we have been the advisers of the buyer", Musat adds. With a turnover of approximately 5 million euros for 2004, which increased by 5%-10% for 2005, the Musat & Associates law firm has more than 500 clients. Some of the most important transactions are: the BancPost acquisition by GE Capital, the privatization of the Agricol (Agricultural) Bank to Raiffeisen Bank, the acquisition of SIDEX Galati by Mittal Steel and so on. For the successful transactions of Tuca & Associates, Cornel Popa reminds the acquisition of Sicomed by Zentiva.

Translated by SORIN BALAN