The Government approved in Thursday’s meeting the Emergency Ordinance to complete the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 202/2008 on the implementation of international sanctions, by which Romanian companies controlled by entities subject to sanctions introduced against Russia, based on the situation in Ukraine will be able to continue their activity in Romania without blocked accounts if they come under a system of state supervision.
“The outbreak of the military conflict in Ukraine has brought very important impacts on the economic balance in Romania, but also in many other European countries. In the context of imposing sanctions at EU level on companies with Russian shareholders, the Romanian economic chain has been indirectly impacted, so there is the issue of protecting companies in this chain that are not subject to sanctions, but especially the issue of protecting thousands of places for work. One example is the metallurgical industry where about 22,000 people are employed, another – the automotive industry where it is estimated that 5,000 jobs out of about 200,000 are currently affected. Our goal is to reduce the risk of losing our jobs for these employees and to avoid rising unemployment. We must adapt and take measures as soon as possible to avoid chain crises,” explained Florin Spătaru, Minister of Economy.
The approved emergency ordinance complements GEO no. 202/2008 on the implementation of international sanctions, by regulating the possibility of establishing an effective set of guarantees, which will ensure that the sanctions regime of the European Union is not prejudiced, in case of granting derogations, and legal entities in Romania to be able to continue their activity. Thus, a state-appointed supervisor is introduced for these companies, the condition for the establishment of supervision being that the application of the restrictive measure of freezing the funds and economic resources of the legal person has a significant economic impact. The competent authority notified accordingly will send within one working day the company’s request to the Ministry of Economy for verification of the fulfillment of the conditions. If the request for supervision is approved, by order of the Minister of Economy, a representative of the ministry shall be appointed to fulfill the capacity of permanent supervisor. After the establishment of the supervisory system, the funds and / or economic resources of the legal entity will be released.
If a company does not meet the conditions for establishing supervision, the Ministry of Economy shall notify within 5 working days of receiving the request to the authority to which the application of the company was submitted, and the competent authority shall reject the application.
The supervisor appointed by the state will be able to attend the meetings of the General Meeting of Shareholders, associates, the board of directors and other such meetings regarding the management of the company, as an observer; will have access to all locations where it operates, as well as to all documents received by the legal entity, namely financial-accounting documents, legal and other documents relating to economic activity. The appointed supervisor will be remunerated with an indemnity at the maximum level established for the members of the board of directors or at the maximum level of the salary of the persons with management position, but not less than 10,000 lei gross.
The obligations of the supervisor include monitoring the activity of the legal person in order to identify any reasonable indications regarding the conduct of any operations with designated persons and / or entities and informing the competent authority and the Ministry of Economy whenever there are suspicions of non-compliance.
If the legal person uses the funds or economic resources in violation of the sanctions, the competent authority revokes by administrative act the measure ordered as a result of the admission of the application, in which case the legal person returns to the sanctioning regime.
