Electrica won the litigation against the Energy Utilities Management Company (SAPE) in the first instance, a litigation claiming from Electrica, jointly with other defendants, damages of about 800 million euros, in connection with with alleged violations of the obligations to monitor the privatization contracts of Electrica’s former distribution subsidiaries. This litigation follows a number of international arbitrations concerning the respective privatization contracts.
Electrica was assisted in this dispute by a team of attorneys at RTPR Allen & Overy and Schoenherr & Associates SCA. The RTPR Allen & Overy team consisted of Valentin Berea (partner), Adriana Dobre (senior associate), Vicu Buzac (managing associate), Ana Popa (Nedelcu) (associate) and Andrada Rusan (associate), while the Schoenherr & Associates team consisted of Adina Jivan (partner, Romania) and Iustin Armaşu (senior attorney at law, Romania).
“The dispute was extremely difficult due to the fact that the adversary tried to bring to question, in another procedural framework, substantive issues that had been the subject of complicated international arbitrations. Even if the court eventually settled the case on the basis of our exceptions, our defense supposed in the written phase also the fight against those substantive issues of the historical privatization contracts concluded with buyers who were not part of this file,” said Valentin Berea.
“It was indeed a complex dossier that involved a great deal of work and made it necessary to allocate significant specialized resources by Schoenherr and Associates and our colleagues from RTPR Allen & Overy. A dossier with multidisciplinary legal implications, a litigation with an interesting and complex issue, appealing to a long and not at all simple contractual and litigating history … On the other hand, financial disputes of this magnitude, of the nature of have a significant impact on the economic situation of the company concerned, always come with additional pressure on the company, which is implicitly passed on to lawyers,” said Adina Jivan.