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On 6 December, Sauli Niinisto, the President of the Republic of Finland, honored Aku Sorainen, founder and Senior Partner of the eponymous Sorainen law firm, with the Knight’s Cross, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland. The Lion of Finland is awarded for civilian and military merit.

The order was presented to Aku Sorainen for decades of work in developing relations between Estonia and Finland and for supporting Finnish businesses in the Baltic-Belarussian region. According to Aku Sorainen, the order is a “deep acknowledgement of the work done by everyone at law firm Sorainen in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus aimed at growth of prosperity in the region by helping businesses to succeed.” In a post on LinkedIn, he joked that, “last time I was awarded a medal was in 1984 when I got the bronze mark of ‘Norssin Turnarit’ my high school’s gymnastics club,” noting that this award, “is of a different category.”

The Order of the Lion of Finland is one of three official orders in Finland, along with the Order of the Cross of Liberty and the Order of the White Rose of Finland. The President of Finland is the Grand Master of all three orders, which are administered by boards consisting of a chancellor, a vice-chancellor, and at least four members. The Order of the Lion of Finland was founded on September 11, 1942, and is awarded for both civilian and military merit. The President of Finland wears the Star of the Order of the Lion of Finland.

Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners (EPAM) has reported successfully defending the large container carrier Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) before the FAS of Russia in a high-profile case related to concerted actions of international sea and ocean container carriers.

On December 14, 2015, the FAS of Russia completed its investigation into allegedly concerted actions leading to an increase or maintenance of sea freight costs by a number of international sea and ocean container carriers. According to an EPAM summary, “the FAS’ claims were based on the fact that the carriers regularly published information on intended General Rate Increases (GRI) on their internet sites, whilst the GRI amounts and dates of implementation predominantly coincided with most carriers.”

EPAM represented a group of MSC companies, and in the course of proceedings managed to convince the FAS that the actions of MSC did not constitute a violation. According to EPAM, the FAS “decided to discontinue the proceedings against MSC in view of no breach of the antitrust law, [although] the Commission found violations in the actions of all other defendants.”

The EPAM team was supervised by Partner Natalia Korosteleva, and included Counsel Evgeny Bolshakov, Associates Grigory Shafeev and Maria Krychkova, and Junior Associate Igor Gavrilov.

Image source: msc.com

Austria’s Fiebinger Polak Leon law firm (FPL) has advised Dunapack Packaging Division — a division of longstanding client Prinzhorn Holdings — on its acquisition of Viokyt Packaging S.A. from two private and unnamed individuals. Greece’s Zepos & Yannopoulos law firm advised the sellers on the deal. Greece’s KR Law and Stavropoulos & Partners law firms worked alongside FPL in advising the buyer. The share purchase agreement was signed on December 14, and the transaction will close upon clearance by Serbian and Macedonian antitrust authorities.

According a FPL press release, the acquisition “shall result in an increase of production capacity by the threefold and a strengthening of Prinzhorn Holdings’ position amongst the market leaders in Europe.”  

Viokyt Packaging S.A., which is over 40 years old, is a family business with headquarters in Schimatari (about 60 kilometres north of Athens), that specializes in the production of printed corrugated packaging. It has a production capacity of 50 million square meters of corrugated packaging per year. 

Dunapack Packaging Division specializes in high-quality printed corrugated packaging solutions produced from recycled paper. The company has an annual production volume of about 1,623 million square meters of corrugated packaging. 

The Fiebinger Polak Leon team was led by Partner Bert Ortner.

The Zepos & Yannopoulos team consisted of Partners Ilias Koimtzoglou and Daphne Cozonis.

Image source: dunapack.ro

Dentons’ Public Procurement Team has advised Stadler – a leading rolling stock manufacturer – on the execution of projects with separate Polish rail carriers.

In the first, the firm represented Stadler in its delivery of electric multiple unit trains to PKP Intercity, which ordered 20 FLIRT3 sets for its long-distance lines. Dentons supported Stadler in authorization proceedings before the President of the Office of Rail Transport for permission to operate all 20 trains. Under its contract with PKP Intercity, Stadler is required to provide maintenance services for the delivered trains over the next 15 years. Dentons described the deal as “one of the biggest investment projects in PKP Intercity’s history, worth a total of more than 1.6 billion PLN.” PKP Intercity was advised by DZP. 

Dentons also represented Stadler before the Office of the Railway Transport in several administrative proceedings aimed at obtaining permission to operate 20 two-car FLIRT electric trains for Lodzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna — a local government-owned railway undertaking — as compliant with all the applicable Technical Specifications for Interoperability. This is the first approval of this kind issued in Poland for regional trains operated as part of a conventional railway system in Poland. According to Dentons, “under its contract with LKA, Stadler provides maintenance services for its trains in a facility specially adapted for this purpose, with Dentons professionals advising the company on its contractual obligations.The project, one of the biggest in Poland’s regional railway market, is worth more than 510 million PLN.”

Editorial Note: After this item was published, Dentons announced that its team advising Stadler was led by Partner Aldona Kowalczyk, and included Counsels Michal Drozdowicz, Anna Szymanska, and Agnieszka Kulinska, and Associates Agnieszka Gilowska and Artur Kawik.

In addition, DZP announced that its team advising InterCity was headed by Partner Aleksandra Auleytner, with the support of a team consisting of Partner Tomasz Darowski and Pawel Paradowski, Counsels Wojciech Dziomdziora and Wojciech Hartung, Senior Associates Agata Kudelska and Krzysztof Fliszkiewicz, and Associate Michal Baglaj. DZP also announced that it had simultaneously represented InterCity on another acquisition, this time from Pesa (reported by CEE Legal Matters on January 11, 2016).

Image source: stadlerrail.com

On September 1, 2015, Ants Nomper took over as new Managing Partner of Raidla Ellex in Estonia, for a four year term. Nomper will work in association with Partner Martin Triipan and previous Managing Partner Toomas Vaher.

Vaher himself became Managing Partner in 2011, working closely with previous Managing Partner Juri Raidla. “Toomas has played a great role running our office and upholding a high reputation of the law firm on local and international market”, said Raidla. “I’m happy to see our experienced colleagues and partners who have put their effort both in legal practice and team development as our new management members.”

Nomper is a well-known Intellectual Property, IT, and Medical Law expert in Estonia. Raidla Ellex reports that he advised on the first patent dispute in Estonia, the first dispute over responsibility of a media channel over commentaries in Estonia, and the first Estonian pharmaceutical advertisement dispute in the European Court of Justice, among others matters. He is an author of the “Medical Law” and “Information and Law” textbooks in Estonia, both the first in their fields to be published in the country. He is a member of the .ee and .eu Domain Disputes Committee.

Established in 1983, Raidla Ellex — now a member of the pan-Baltic Ellex alliance, after the Raidla Lejins & Norcous alliance disbanded in May 2015 (reported by CEE Legal Matters on May 20, 2015) — is one of the oldest law firms in Estonia.

Vicentiu Ramniceanu is the Legal Director of the Romanian National Lottery Company (“Compania Nationala Loteria Romana S.A.”), a role that he has held since June 2013. Prior to joining the Lottery he worked as Supervisor, Corporate Banking, for Banca Comerciala Romana from 2011 to 2013, and for EY as Senior Legal Counsel from 2008 to 2011. His earlier experience included working as Senior Legal Counsel for Oglinda Nemes Voicu and the A.C. Pop Law Office and as Legal Counsel with Sulica Protopopescu Vonica, EOS KSI Romania, and the UNHCR.

V.R.: Becoming a lawyer was a dream come true, as it is a tradition in my family. I had the unexpected opportunity to work as a trainee lawyer with one of my former university professors, concentrating at first on the foundations of civil and corporate law. 

Following that I took on successive challenges – several collaborations with international organizations or law firms – that introduced me to both marvelous and complex fields of law, including humanitarian law, real estate, public sector, M&A, IP law, and capital markets law. I call this experience a valuable one for we know that any large company is required to comply with legal requirements in most of the aforementioned areas. Building on the desire to deepen my knowledge of banking law, in 2011 I joined one of the major financial institutions in Romania in corporate legal services for a couple of years. That was an intense period, due to a call for quick adjustment to the bank’s workflows, a switch to a new Civil Code, and compliance with complex legal data processing, all in a fast-moving environment. It was a successful experience, owing to specific abilities I had acquired previously by working within a Big Four company. Later on, in 2013, I joined the Romanian Lottery as General Counsel. 

I should mention that during these fifteen years of legal practice, I was inspired and supported by generous, hard-working, and experienced professionals, each of them contributing, through their example, to most of my achievements. Should they recognize themselves in this posture, I assure them, once more, of my deepest appreciation.

V.R.: The Romanian Lottery is a state-owned company operating in a private, competitive environment. Although gambling is not a harmonized field at the European Union level, the principles enshrined in EU Treaties as well as competition and state-aid legislation shape gambling legislation and practice in Romania and in other EU member states. 

In my capacity as the GC of the organization, my first priority is to respond to legal risk management requirements, both internal and external. Besides driving on-going legal activity, my personal concern is to provide documented, actionable advice to management and to internal beneficiaries in every area, most frequently in labor, public procurements, and gambling. Differences from previous assignments include the specificity of the company, entrenched practices that required updating, changing legislation, and responding to various public authorities’ and institutions’ control missions, each of them with a different, specific approach. Working in a public company imparts additional responsibility in our daily missions since every risk can have an impact on the company’s ability to fulfill its public interest purpose.

V.R.: From the very start I must say that every task has its particular weight and influence in the overall process. It is for this reason that, after consultating with the management of the company, I establish daily priorities, which are then imparted to the legal team. I like to stay close to people and advise them, or brainstorm solutions, with everyone’s experience being a valuable asset in our work. I also try to save a couple of hours in the afternoon for legal updates and in-depth analysis of complex issues.

V.R.: Gambling legislation has gone through some major changes in the past 12 months, all testing our ability to respond quickly, analyze, draft contributions, and adapt our procedures and work. All of our efforts were aimed at the utmost protection of the Romanian Lottery’s interests and its specific mission, combined with aligning our activities to recommended practices in the field. 

Amendments to the gambling law generated additional obligations for gambling operators, all meant to ensure a safer, more responsible environment for the players. In 2013 the authority in the gambling sector – the National Gambling Office, an entity subordinate to the Romanian Government – initiated a new framework to gambling legislation. 

Legal norms, enacted in the last 12 moths, regulate new activities and new products for the Romanian gambling market, such as land-based and remote (online) betting exchanges, remote casino-type games, poker games carried out in poker clubs. and raffles or temporary gambling activities carried out in resorts. Moreover, mutual betting activities, both online and land-based, exited from the monopoly of the Romanian Lottery. Furthermore, all activities organized by various economic operators to stimulate sales which do not involve a participation fee or additional expense from the participants, or an increase in price from the one the product had prior to the advertising campaign, are subject to the prior approval of the Office.

V.R.: The Romanian Lottery is a large company, with almost two thousand agencies operating at the national level. Therefore our legal team, encompassing more than fifteen legal counselors, provides specialized assistance both at a central level and to the territory, whenever such assistance is required. Two services divide our legal work into legal advice and real estate issues on one side and litigation with authorization attributions on the other side. 

V.R.: Our colleagues from the legal advisory & real estate team are entrusted with the task of supervising and safeguarding the company’s rights in respect to its immovable assets and ensuring the registration of these assets in the Land Book. Their attributions are separated from the activities of the other team, which covers litigations and authorizations. The last two are not connected, meaning that our litigations cover the usual disputes related to labor, contesting minutes of contraventions, or the settling in courts of law of various issues related to non-fulfillment of duties arising from contractual relationships.

V.R.: We do have a dedicated team to fulfill regulatory obligations. This team is integrated in our Legal Division and attends to any authorization process. Additionally, the advisory legal team and the General Counsel are responsible for following any legal developments, both general and specifically related to the gambling sector. Since I took office this team has provided opinions, comments, and support in drafting laws, and taken any opportunity to express our position in respect to specific gambling legislation. I should mention that it has been commonplace within the gambling industry to have public consultations on gambling legislation amendments within a consultative panel of the Romanian authority in the field – the National Gambling Office. 

V.R.: I was invited during a summer law school to describe the advantages of becoming an in-house lawyer. Capitalizing on the experience of almost a decade in-house, I felt it was important to mention the ability of an in-house lawyer to understand the entire process surrounding a legal issue, the easiness to address questions and to inquire on the matters at hand. Specialization came second as an asset, with the same legal counselors performing all parts of a legal operation, whether advisory or litigation. Working for the same employer for years, of course, can also generate costs related to routine, lack of motivation or of experience in unfolding a major project, lack of familiarity with particular types of competition inquiries or the merger/acquisition process. In this context, and for matters that stand outside the usual workload of a company legal department, specialized outsourced assistance may be required. 

Law firms able to demonstrate competence and experience, dedicated lawyers, and a presence in top-tier specialized rankings – along with an offer of reasonable fees – may be selected, according to the applicable legal framework, in line with specific acquisition procedures. 

Since excessive use of external counsel became a matter of concern for the prudent expenditure of public funds, public companies have begun manifesting a growing interest in the process of capacity building and empowering internal counsels, though benefiting from a law firm’s qualified expertise during harsh times may always be advisable. 

V.R.: I’m glad that you mention this and admit that my activist period, as you call it, inoculated me with principles and values I still apply today. It is not by chance that foreign students or graduates undergo voluntary service before getting a job, no matter their area of specialization. 

In any position, awareness of stakeholder interests is a must, whether we’re talking about clients, employees, or the community in general. Understanding this phenomenon, I looked for opportunities to contribute to increasing the corporate social responsibility effect, with my volunteering work involved planting trees (while with EY), supporting community projects through a dedicated grants platform (“Bursa Binelui”), and getting involved in various projects developed by NGOs. It is always the right time to do the right thing at the right place.

The views expressed in this interview belong solely to Vicentiu Ramniceanu and in no way are to be construed as official positions of C.N. Loteria Romana S.A.

This Article was originally published in Issue 2.5. of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

Ramona Ene is the Legal Manager responsible for Romania and Bulgaria at Cargill, which provides food, agriculture, financial, and industrial products and services in 67 countries. Prior to joining the company in 2005, Ene was a Partner with Anastasescu & Asociatii from 2003 to 2005, a Partner with the Ramona Ene Law Office from 2000 to 2003, and an Associate Lawyer with the Mihail Georgescu Law Office from 1998 to 2000. 

R.E.: My late maternal grandfather was the first who foresaw a future in a legal career for me, when the rest of my family was pushing hard for me to enter the healthcare system. He was a Sergeant in World War II and spent a couple of years in captivity. I like to believe I inherited from him the resilience to pursue my own goals despite everybody else’s opinion. Immediately after graduation I became a member of the Prahova Bar and started a practice in my hometown, Valenii de Munte. During my apprenticeship years I was blessed to be guided by Mihail Georgescu – for decades one of the most distinguished Judges at the Ploiesti Appellate Court, at that time retired – and he instilled in me his passion for civil law and the court atmosphere. A few years later, following my heart, I moved to Bucharest, where I initially practiced as a litigator for Anastasescu & Asociatii and fairly quickly became a Partner. Moving to Cargill as an in-house lawyer was a difficult professional decision; I remember it took me a couple of sleepless nights to make the call, but in the end it proved to be the right choice.   

R.E.: It’s a very simple explanation: Cargill has a special charm, and I fell in love with it. It starts with the fact that I enjoy serving an industry which serves Romanian farmers and brings its own contribution to the bread I eat in the morning. I am proud that our Code of Ethics is a living document that we all strive to observe in everything we do, not just another poster hanging on corporate walls. I am excited to be part of a sophisticated and educated European legal team of approximately 60 lawyers, who are constantly exchanging best practices, ideas, and knowledge, and who are continuously engaged in exciting assignments. In Cargill I have always felt valued as a person and lawyer by the numerous internal clients I worked with over the years and in various roles I undertook. All of these have brought me plenty of opportunities for personal and professional growth. Last but not the least, it gave me great pleasure to initiate Cargill’s first Cares Council in Romania and serve as its President for some good years, helping the communities where we operate to thrive together with our company. Cargill Cares Councils are employee-led groups that implement strategic community involvement activities in their local communities. Cargill has more than 350 of these councils around the world and we share the common goal of ensuring that Cargill is investing its financial and human resources to help meet our business objectives while serving local communities.

R.E.: We have one member of our legal team in Romania, Iulia Danila, who is part of a European in-house environmental legal team. They work together to provide legal advice to Cargill businesses in Europe on a variety of environmental issues. Cargill’s customers, consumers, governments, and activist groups are demanding greater transparency around where and how the raw materials that Cargill trades and processes are produced. Increasingly, these key stakeholders want reassurance that every player at every step in the supply chain is acting in a responsible and sustainable manner.  Cargill is focused on assessing and managing the environmental and social impacts of its operations and supply chains to mitigate commercial, regulatory, and reputation risk. Our legal work spans Europe and is often not limited to a single country like Romania.

R.E.: The Bulgarian market has a wide range of law firms offering excellent legal service, and for our daily operations we consult them. That being said, there are multiple ways to overcome a lack of local qualification – and even flip that into an advantage. We should not forget that Bulgaria and Romania are both EU state members and consequently in the last years have harmonized many of their laws according to European legislation, thus many legal concepts are applicable mutatis mutandis. Both countries have quite similar economic developments and the maturity of their legal proceedings and enforcement of law is quite similar. After some time working on certain areas of law specific to our industry, I ended up becoming familiar with certain local regulations which impact our activities there. Similarly, on employment matters, where questions are quite frequent for in-house lawyers, I found that sometimes Bulgarian rules are more permissive than the Romanian Employment Code. I think our Bulgarian business took advantage of my Romanian insights on input business when we first launched their crop inputs sales.

R.E.: As a competition law specialist I was invited to be part of the larger legal team that helped this deal go through, with my role being to manage and obtain regulatory approvals. At the beginning of August the parties were discussing closing the deal by the end of this year, but as you have probably seen a few days ago the closing was announced. Such a result would have not been possible without very aggressive deadlines for preparing the economic concentration notifications in several countries where the transaction required filing. Cargill is a large organization and its business lines are managed independently, thus collating, reviewing, and presenting consolidated economic, commercial, and legal data per each country’s legal demands tested my project coordination abilities quite heavily. The holiday season as well as time zone differences didn’t help either. Honestly, I would not have accomplished it without the great help received from my fellow colleagues, who were responsive to my requests. 

One feature I like the most in our organization is that opportunities are offered to everyone, regardless where are located. We all can bring our contribution to the best of our capabilities. In the last decade I was privileged to work for clients located in several countries in CEE on important cross-border projects, so I can testify that professionalism and diversity are appreciated in Cargill regardless of where people come from.

R.E.: We operate based on a model where in-house and external legal work is properly balanced to provide the best value to Cargill. Competition law and merger control is a rather highly specialized field where knowledge and proven expertise makes a big difference, especially because each jurisdiction has different requirements and each regulator may have a different perspective on market definitions.

R.E.: Like any other organization, we try to obtain the best quality-value ratio from our relationship with law firms. Generally, the experience a law firm can put behind a project is critical, their capabilities and resources are important, and of course cost is always a factor to consider. As I mentioned before, I tend to view merger control as a rather highly specialized field where knowledge and experience matters most.

R.E.: I believe we have quite an efficient way to track satisfaction, especially for major projects. Each project brings its own unique criteria, thus we ask for feedback from external collaborators on how we can further improve our internal work processes. Personally, in addition to expertise and professionalism brought to the table by the external counsel, I always remember the extra mile someone will walk with me to produce the best legal product in given circumstances. Working under budget or fee caps, which is our preferred approach, may not be the biggest incentive for a law firm to spend all its resources for the best conceivable legal product, but I am often impressed by the tremendous good will and effort our external collaborators make to deliver on this goal.

R.E.: Once, when I had severe and persistent laryngitis, I contemplated the idea that nothing in life is to be taken for granted and I wondered what might happen if eventually I would not be able to speak again … I honestly don’t imagine myself doing something else, with the notable exception of being the mother of my three lovely boys. 

This Article was originally published in Issue 2.5. of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

The recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Romania follows different judicial procedures depending on whether the orders were issued by the courts of law of a EU or a non-EU member state.

Recognition and enforcement of judgments pronounced by the courts of a non-EU jurisdiction departs from the framework governing within-EU procedures and fall under the international law provisions of the Romanian Civil Procedure Code; national law provisions are applicable only if the relevant provisions of international treaties to which Romania is a party do not provide otherwise. 

Foreign judgments relating to personal status are recognized directly under Romanian law if they refer to the personal status of the citizens of the state in which they were issued; in any other case, they must first be recognized in the state of citizenship of the litigant parties. Recognition of all other court decisions in Romania require a ruling by a court of law in Romania and may be sought either incidentally or directly through application. Under no circumstances may the competent Romanian court or authorities examine a foreign judgment as to its substance or modify it.

The interested party applying to have a foreign judgment recognized shall prove that the res judicata applies in their case – i.e., that the relevant judgment is final and irrevocable in the state it was pronounced, that the court that issued the judgment had the jurisdictional competence to do so, and that there is reciprocity with respect to the effects of foreign judgments between Romania and the state where the judgment was rendered. 

However, there have been cases where Romanian courts have refused to recognize a foreign judgment on the grounds that the judgment violated the principles of public order found in private international law or had been obtained as a result of fraud, where the dispute – involving the same issue and brought by the same parties – had already been settled by a Romanian court, or where the case was still pending in Romania when it was introduced into the foreign law court.

With respect to the enforcement of a foreign judgment in Romania, national law stipulates that if the party on whom a foreign law court judgment is to be enforced resists or refuses to comply, the judicial enforcement of an exequatur procedure shall apply; however, foreign judgments on precautionary measures or interim enforcement are unenforceable in Romania. 

The person who seeks enforcement of a foreign judgment in Romania shall apply for a declaration of enforceability before the competent court of the jurisdiction where the enforcement procedure will commence and support his/her application with evidence that all formal conditions for the recognition of the judgment have been fulfilled and that the foreign judgment is enforceable in the country where it was rendered.

In the event that, during the enforcement procedure, any of the litigant parties are obliged to make a payment in foreign currency, conversion to the national currency (LEI) shall be made on the basis of the exchange rate as of the date the decision became enforceable in the state where it was issued. In case the payment bears interest, such interest shall be governed by the law of the court that pronounced the judgment until the moment the judgment becomes enforceable and, thereafter, shall be subject to Romanian law. On the basis of an irrevocable decision permitting enforcement, an execution writ shall be issued under the laws of Romania. 

Court settlements fall under the same regime as foreign judgments in terms of enforceability and, upon fulfillment of the same enforceability conditions, they may generate the same effects in Romania that they produce in the jurisdiction of settlement. 

Generally, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Romania are regulated via a straightforward and relatively fast-track procedure, though the process can turn into a time-consuming exercise where the person sought to be summoned resides abroad. Otherwise, the relevant proceedings set a strict framework and narrowed-down admissibility conditions that the opposing party may only challenge on the grounds of non-compliance and/or non-fulfillment of the prerequisites set out therein.

By Valentin Cocean, Partner, Drakopoulos

This Article was originally published in Issue 2.5. of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.

The process of transposing 2014 EU directives in the public procurement domain (Directive 2014/24/EU (concerning the “classical” sector), Directive 2014/25/EU (utilities), and Directive 2014/23/EU (concessions)) into Romanian law has provided an opportunity for a more extended reform of the Romanian legal framework regulating this sector.

Currently, the public procurement domain in Romania is regulated through a main normative act – Government Emergency Ordinance nr. 34/2006 regarding the award of public procurement contracts, public works concession contracts, and services concession contracts, as amended and supplemented (comprising provisions regarding the classical sector, utilities, concessions, remedies, etc.). In addition to this, there are series of secondary and tertiary laws setting forth and/or detailing various aspects relevant for the sector.

As opposed to the current status, the strategy of the Romanian legislature with respect to the proposed new legal framework (transposing 2014 EU directives) is to have several and separate primary laws for each major field: classical public procurement, utilities, concessions and challenges/remedies (defense procurement is regulated by a separate normative act).

Thus, in July 2015 two of the draft laws (on classical procurement and on remedies) were submitted for public consultations (together with the strategy for the public procurement field). In September 2015 the other two draft laws (on utilities and concessions) were also made public.

As a result, the public procurement sector is expected to be reconfigured not only in substance, but also from a formal perspective, with the stated aim of creating a more stable, coherent, and systematic legal framework.

The deadline for transposing the new directives is April 18, 2016, but pursuant to the intention of the Romanian legislators, the (majority of the) new provisions are expected to enter into force on January 01, 2016.

Although the primary laws are of major importance, the secondary and tertiary laws will also play a considerable role in the application of the principles stated in the main laws.

Like the EU Directives they transpose, the new draft laws regulate not only the organization of the public procurement procedures, but also specific aspects regarding the contract performance phase. Accordingly, there are provisions setting forth the conditions and situations in which a contract may be modified without organizing a new public procurement procedure. Guidelines on this matter are currently available in CJUE case law, which was in fact codified by the 2014 directives (and implicitly by the Romanian draft laws). Given the various factual situations that may be relevant in assessing the conditions under which a contract may be modified without organizing a new procedure, the topic is and will remain quite a sensitive one. 

From an institutional perspective, the legal framework setting forth the organization and functioning of the competent authority for regulating, monitoring, and verifying public procurement was also reformed in 2015. Thus, the National Agency for Public Procurement  has been created to take over the competences, activity, and personnel of (i) the National Authority for Regulating and Monitoring Public Procurement, (ii) the Unit for the Coordination and Verification of Public Procurement of the Ministry of Public Finances and (iii) the divisions verifying public procurements of the regional general departments of public finances. The new agency gathers the previous institutions playing important roles in the public procurement field (including with respect to ex-ante and ex-post verifications of the award procedures) under the same umbrella. 

For Romania, a full and accurate assessment of the public procurement reform will be possible after the publication of the final versions of the draft laws and after the issuance of the basic secondary and tertiary laws. 

By Adina Chilim-Dumitriu, Partner, and Delia Ropan, Senior Associate, Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen

This Article was originally published in Issue 2.5. of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.