The Competition Council announces that it won in the first instance the lawsuits with two banks that wanted to suspend some procedures in the ROBOR investigation
The institution announced on Wednesday that it won the lawsuits filed by two of the 10 fined banks, lawsuits that had the role of blocking the finality of the investigation regarding the ROBOR index, according to the Competition Council. Court decisions are not final.
“Never before in the history of the Competition Council has this happened: the banks have tried, by all means, either at the trial court or at the Court of Appeal, to block the completion of the investigation. A company that considers itself innocent goes to court to prove its innocence. In this case, however, the banks turned to the court, asking to suspend the hearings, deliberations and drafting of the decision, in order to prevent us from completing the investigation. The last trial was judged on Monday morning, and the court confirmed the fact that the steps to block the proceedings had no legal basis”, said the president of the Competition Council, quoted by Agerpres.
According to the official statement of the state authority, cited by Agerpres, one of the banks filed a lawsuit requesting access to protected documents, without respecting the applicable legal procedures, and suspending the organization of the hearing, a move that would have had the effect of blocking the adoption of a decision by the Plenary of the Competition Council.
The second bank requested in court to suspend the adoption of the deliberations of the Plenary of the Competition Council and the elaboration of the decision with the extended reasoning.
The courts, which were the 1st District Court and the Bucharest Court of Appeal, rejected the requests as inadmissible. Court sentences are not final, banks can appeal to the High Court of Cassation and Justice. The institution does not specify which are the two banks.
Four years of investigation
The Competition Council's investigation established that the sanctioned banks exchanged confidential and strategic information regarding the level of ROBOR during the fixing procedure, although the confidentiality of firm quotations during the fixing period is provided for both by competition rules and by national and European regulations.
The Competition Council's investigation targeted 11 banks, but fines were applied to 10 because, in the meantime, OTP Bank was taken over by Banca Transilvania, so the latter pays two fines.
The amount of the fines is as follows:
- Banca Comercială Română SA: 577.36 million lei;
- BRD-Groupe Société Générale SA: 412.47 million lei;
- Banca Transilvania SA: 875.74 million lei;
- Banca Transilvania SA (for the deed carried out by OTP Bank România SA): 85.03 million lei;
- ING Bank NV Amsterdam Bucharest Branch: 405.91 million lei;
- Raiffeisen Bank Romania SA: 442.49 million lei;
- Exim Banca Românească SA: 96.49 million lei;
- CEC Bank SA: 332.98 million lei;
- UniCredit Bank SA: 431.03 million lei;
- Banca Comercială Intesa Sanpaolo Romania SA: 28.1 million lei;
- Libra Internet Bank SA: 45.86 million lei.
