Only 2% of the Gold Has Been Given Back

Only 3.4% of the persons from which gold was stolen between 1946 and 1990 sued the state in order to recover their goods. Until now Justice finalized 617 cases, for which NBR (the National Bank of Romania) gave back 148 kilograms of fine gold.

According to the modification proposals for the Law no. 362/2003 the term for applying the retrocession facilities will be extended. The persons from which goods made of precious metals and stones were taken abusively have been able to claim them legally until the end of last year, without being forced to pay the stamp duty. Moreover, the retrocession request could have been applied at the Court under whose jurisdiction the ones claiming were. Starting from January 2004, for the retrocession requests a stamp duty is paid, and the requests can only be applied at the Bucharest Court of Law.

"First of all we want the extension of the term for applying the requests without paying any stamp duty and also the possibility of suing the state at the headquarters were the accuser belongs to according to his address", stated for us Adrian Vasilescu, the NBR vice-governor’s councilor.

DEADLINES. According to the modifications proposed for the normative document, the people and the legal persons whose goods made of precious metals, alloys of them or precious stones have been confiscated based on normative documents in the 40s, the 60s and the 70s, which are specified in an addendum, can claim these objects from the Courts of Law in whose jurisdiction they live, until the 30th of June 2005.

Next week, at the NBR headquarters, some technical issues regarding the retrocession of the precious metals are to be set. "Some of the persons whose gold was confiscated received compensations. Many of them also say the police beat them up when they came to confiscate the gold. The laws must be precise when assigning the procedure to be followed in these cases", stated Vasilescu.

QUANTITIES. Approximately seven tones of gold valuing 50 to 70 million euros might be claimed by people or by legal persons that, between 1946 and 1990, owned goods made out of precious metals that have been confiscated afterwards. The amount of gold would have been valid in case that all the legal cases were taken into account. Until now, in the NBR database there are 150,000 persons that were abusively taken from goods made of precious metals.

APPROXIMATIONS. "No one really knows the whole amount of gold to be given back. The seven tones are approximate and would be the equivalent of 70 million euros" - Adrian Vasilescu, the NBR vice-governor’s councilor.

MORE THAN 5,000 LAWSUITS

Now, there are 5,170 cases in discussion, from which 1,207 in Bucharest. Until now 617 cases have been finalized, 90 in 2003 and the other 597 in 2004. NBR gave back to the people 148 kilograms of fine gold. The Central Bank’s reserve is 105.1 tones. According to the Romany’s king, Florin Cioaba, the Gypsies in Sibiu have got back from the Romanian state approximately 60 tones of gold, the whole amount of requests being somewhere around 100. In most of the cases, the Romany, during the communist period, paid with gold in order to get away from prison or from the police’s beating. Cioaba says that a lot of the gold has been confiscated without any documents.