Romania

Bulgarian insurance group Eurohold announced that it filed a lawsuit against Romania at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of what it claims to be the illegal bankruptcy of local subsidiary Euroins, Romania-Insider.com reported. Moreover, it also reconfirmed that it is preparing an arbitration request for the amount of over EUR 500 million at an international court in the U.S. At the same time, Eurohold claimed that the lawsuit in Romania against ASF’s decision to withdraw Euroins’ operating license has recently started.

Romania is tapping international markets for the first time in 2024 to take advantage of high demand for emerging-market debt after its regional peers went ahead with euro and dollar offerings to fund their budget deficits, Bloomberg News reported.

Romania’s state-controlled supplier of services in the air defence industry, Romaero, entered insolvency at its request after a court ruled in December that it should pay EUR 17 million in compensations for failure to upgrade a Boeing 737-200 to one of its customers. At stake are Romaero’s plots of land located in the northern outskirts of Bucharest, Romania-Insider.com. Last summer, the company missed the chance to become a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) centre for Black Hawk helicopters produced by the American military giant Lockheed Martin, Profit.ro reported.

The number of insolvent Romanian companies inched down by an annual 0.2% to 5,378 in the first ten months of 2023, the country's trade registry, ONRC, said, SeeNews.com reported. The highest number of insolvent companies and legal entities was registered in the capital Bucharest, jumping by 17.8% on the year to 1,084, data published on the ONRC website on Wednesday showed. The central county of Covasna saw the lowest number of insolvencies in the ten months through August, with only 21 firms becoming insolvent, compared to 26 insolvencies recorded in the same period of last year.

The Romanian Ministry of Economy announced that it sanctioned the tour operator Kusadasi with a fine and, in addition, withdrew its operating license following the inspection carried out after the agency filed for insolvency, Romania-Insider.com reported. Inspections found that the tour operator sold travel services whose total value exceeds the sum insured by guarantee instruments, thus breaching provisions of Art. 18, paragraph (1) of Government Ordinance nr. 2/2018.

Romanian insolvent airline Blue Air won the lawsuit against the National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) for the first fine of EUR 2 mln the company was given last summer, Ziarul Financiar reported. A second EUR 2 mln fine was issued in October for similar reasons, Romania-Insider.com reported. ANPC fined Blue Air a record amount of EUR 2 mln in July for the first time for cancelling over 11,000 flights between April 30, 2021 – April 30, 2022. Blue Air claimed that the fine was illegal and discriminatory. The District 1 Court decided on May 25 to reduce the fine to EUR 20,000.

A total of 1,644 companies in Romania went insolvent in the first quarter of 2023 (Q1), a number similar to the one in Q1 2022, when 1,610 insolvent companies were registered, Romanian-Insider.com reported. Of the companies that went into insolvency, 23 are impactful companies, totalling over 1,950 employees, fixed assets worth over RON 589 million (EUR 120 mln) and a total turnover of RON 805 million (EUR 163 mln), according to an analysis by CITR, the insolvency and restructuring market leader in Romania.

Major Romanian electro-IT retailer Altex, which operates physical stores and an online store that hosts third-party sellers, purchased for an unspecified price a EUR 4.6 mln claim held by Banca Transilvania against insolvent online retailer of furniture and home decoration goods Vivre Deco, Wall-street.ro reported. Altex has expanded its activity in recent years to new product categories, including furniture, DIY, automotive products, toys, beverages and sanitary products.

The European Commission (EC) has opened a detailed investigation to assess whether certain support measures taken by Romania in favour of Blue Air Aviation, specifically the guarantees for a EUR 34 mln rescue loan extended in August 2020 and its renewal, comply with EU state aid rules, G4media.ro reported. Specifically, such a detailed investigation assesses whether the troubled company is likely to become viable after the restructuring plan as notified to the Commission.