The 100% Romanian airline DAN AIR is suing the lawyer who abusively requested the insolvency of the company and who publicly transmitted this through the media, with the aim of constraining DAN AIR. The information regarding the company’s insolvency produced an impairment of the company’s confidence among business partners and passengers.
DAN AIR is suing the lawyer Claudiu-Costin Damian at the Bucharest Bar for non-compliance with the confidentiality clause of the legal act, and implicitly professional secrecy, which led to the violation of the Romanian Lawyer’s Code of Ethics. Find below some of the abuses committed by the lawyer Claudiu-Costin Damian, on the basis of which DAN AIR is suing him in court (file no. 5461/299/2024) and at the Bucharest Bar (register no. 221515).
“The claim requested by the lawyer Claudiu-Costin Damian in the amount of 23,000 euros represented a penalty of the legal assistance contract concluded between DAN AIR and the lawyer Damian, abusively inserted by the lawyer, which forbade the DAN AIR company to change the lawyer unjustifiably, without paying this penalty. It is against the custom and code of ethics of the legal profession to introduce clauses that, if a client is dissatisfied with the services of a lawyer, he cannot change him without paying a penalty. Practically, through this clause, the lawyer becomes, from the symbol of the legal mechanism, an ordinary service provider, ready to make his client pay significant sums in order to be able to conclude a contract.
Moreover, in the present situation, DAN AIR did not unjustifiably want to change its counsel, but as a result of the failure to perform a complete and satisfactory defense for the client. Lawyer Damian consistently refused evidence of a technical nature made available by the DAN AIR company to increase the chances of success in court. Therefore, DAN AIR requested the termination of the legal aid contract, and not simple termination without justification in which case that abusive clause could have operated. Although he was notified of the termination request from the client, the lawyer Claudiu-Costin Damian requested the payment of the penalty even though we are not in the situation of unreasonably renouncing the legal assistance provided by the lawyer Damian.
DAN AIR refused the payment, and the lawyer Claudiu-Costin Damian assigned this claim to the CASTELLAR CONSTRUCT company owned by his family. Some of the reasons that could have led to the decision of the lawyer Damian would be the lower fees if the money was collected by an LLC and not by a lawyer. Another reason would be for lawyer Damian not to appear on the court portal as suing his own client,” the airline says in a press release.
“The lawyer is obliged to maintain professional secrecy regarding any aspect of the case entrusted to him, except for the cases expressly provided by law.
However, by far the most serious thing done by this lawyer is the violation of professional secrecy, the confidentiality of the legal assistance contract. It is well known that a lawyer keeps secret the name of the client, the object of the assistance, everything that emerges from the legal assistance contract. Thus, in the situation where the lawyer Claudiu-Costin Damian assigned the claims resulting from a legal assistance contract to the company CASTELLAR CONSTRUCT, owned by family members, he also sent the company the deed generating the claim, so that the lawyer Claudiu-Costin Damian submitted the legal assistance contract, which leads to the violation of the obligation of confidentiality and professional secrecy”.