Rompetrol will open a lawsuit against the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) for wiretapping the telephone conversations of Rompetrol chairman Dinu Patriciu and other members of the management. The wiretaps had been active for several years but relevant authorities failed to clarify the precise period of time during which they were active. Rompetrol lawyers maintain that the tapping of the telephones had been conducted with gross, repeated and irresponsible violation of the current legal proceedings, the Criminal Proceedings Code and the National Security Law respectively.
Rompetrol lawyers will file the lawsuit on Wednesday, February 15, asking for moral and reputation-related damages of $1 million. This amount will be further increased by quantifying any property damages or material losses caused to the company by the gathering and storage of private commercial development plans of The Rompetrol Group. To this will be added loss of reputation damages caused by the allegations against company officials regarding possible involvement in terrorist activity that may have threatened national security, which by their nature had an immensely negative effect on Rompetrol’s brand name.
The decision to take legal action comes following the confusing and inconsistent response provided by the relevant authorities regarding wiretaps on telephones used by the company’s chairman Dinu Patriciu, or of those considered by the SRI to be used by him – dozens of phone lines, when in fact very few of them were actually being used by the Rompetrol chairman.