The investigations started one year ago against several managers of Rompetrol are ongoing. The Public Prosecutor’s office invited them for additional interviews on Tuesday, March 29, to present the allegations against them and ask for further clarifications.
This investigation started in March 2004 as a result of a memorandum issued by the former Presidential Administration. In the spirit of openness and transparency the Rompetrol Group will continue to fully support the Public Prosecutor’s Office inquiry into the Romanian oil industry. Last autumn the prosecutors have opened an inquiry against several of our employees.
We expect that the on-going investigation will be completed soon and will fully exonerate them. Rompetrol Rafinare has opened a data room where bona-fide investigators, reporters or shareholders of the comany may read the most relevant documents and clarify all possible suspicions. Rompetrol has taken a similar action last year, when the privatization and the activity of Petromidia refinery was subject of countless investigations by the Romanian anticorruption and fiscal authorities.
In October 2004 the General Prosecutor of the Anticorruption Public Prosecution Office [PNA] Mr. Ioan Amarie stated publicly in a televized show that the prosecutors concluded the privatization of Petromidia refinery was free of any acts of corruption that may fall under the PNA authority. The penal inquiry has been terminated and the file has been referred to the Public Prosecution Office.
“We have already opened all the communication and information channels in 2004 because we have nothing to hide. Nobody has broken the law and the law-enforcers will prove it. The authorities will enjoy our full support and we are sure they will conclude the allegations against us are unfounded” said Rompetrol communications director, Eugen Babau Iladi.
“We believe that the questions are legitimate and we are convinced that the state institutions will carry out their duties in the most efficient way and – as soon as possible - will favorably clarify all the matters related to Petromidia refinery in general and the aspects that differentiate Petromidia from any other refinery in Romania – in particular. This will be in the benefit of our company, of its shareholders and its employees alike, as well as contributing to the well-being of the entire Romanian economy” added Babau.
The Rompetrol Group welcomes the decision of the Public Prosecution Office and the Parliamentary Commission for Industry and Services to examine the privatization of all the Romanian refineries and to apply an equal treatment to all the players on the Romanian oil market.
This only shows that the administration and the justice system have an unbiased approach in their attempts to clarify these matters quickly, once and for all. The Rompetrol Group si the largest Romanian private industrial group, with a gross revenue of $1.61 billion in 2004, and more than 7,300 employees.
The Group relaunched the Petromidia refinery after privatizing it in 2001, amd transformed it in the most modern refinery in the country. In 2004 Petromidia reported a net profit of $4 million for the first time since opening in 1979.
For the first two months of 2005 the net profit registered at Petromidia came up to $17.7 million. The Rompetrol Group has always met its fiscal obligations, contributing $603 million in taxes in 2004, which represents the equivallent of 1 million average pensions in Romania.