DNA conducts checks on ANAF for not recovering EUR 60m in ICA file

The National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) got noticed ex officio in regard to the non-execution of the sentence in the case of Dan Voiculescu (photo) in ICA (Institute for Food Research) file, digi24.ro reports.
The DNA investigations refer to the non-execution of the final Bucharest Court of Appeal ruling on August 2014 on the privatisation of ICA.
Following the ex officio notification, the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) employees are the first ones targeted, being the only ones empowered by law to implement the decision under the supervision of judges who have ruled.
The ex officio notification comes in the same period in which ANAF received a confirmation from the Court of Appeal that there is no legal impediment in connection with the implementation of the sentence in ICA file. ANAF had submitted in December a request to the Court of Appeal, to the same panel that gave the final decision in the case of the ICA privatisation, asking the judiciary to determine whether the leases could block the process of taking possession by the state.
Just over 1% of the damage in ICA file has been recovered by the state so far, a year and a half after Dan Voiculescu’s sentence. The confiscation of land and buildings is blocked by a series of lawsuits filed in court by the companies concerned by the decision.
The building in which the news television operates, founded by the former senator, is leased from another company where shareholders are also the Voiculescu family members. The contract between the two companies is invoked to postpone indefinitely the seizure of the building, as the court ruled, the same source says.
In the files opened by the of companies founded by the Voiculescu family, requesting the suspension of the procedure of confiscation, a statement in the court’s sentence is quoted by which goods were confiscated from Dan Voiculescu.
With reference to the seizure, the court established that the land and the buildings, that the state should take possession of, should be free of any charges. That means that when the state takes over, those buildings or land shall not be subject to a bank loan or a lease, claim the firms concerned.
These companies have opened lawsuits claiming state’s inability to take possession of the property that belonged to them until the final sentence.