Record penalties in Sector 1: 1.6 million lei per day after the institution accused Romprest of not complying with the snow removal schedule
Car and pedestrian traffic in difficult conditions caused by massive snowfall and consequences of the red snow code, in Bucharest, February 18, 2026. Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea
The City Hall of Sector 1 announced penalties of 1.6 million lei per day for each day that snow is on the streets. The institution accused the Romprest operator of not completing the snow removal operations even three days after the beginning of the snowfall, according to Buletin de București.
The institution accuses the sanitation operator of not complying with the snow removal schedule, after more than 30 hours have passed since the maximum deadline for completing the operations. On 20% of the secondary streets, no equipment entered, and on the rest “interventions remain non-compliant”, according to the announcement of the District 1 City Hall.
The City Hall of Sector 1 specifies that the situation on the ground confirms the non-compliance with the obligations, because Romprest uses only 14 machines on the secondary streets, although through the snow removal program it assumed 39. Although the operator declared the main streets completed, the checks of the authorities indicate “STB stations surrounded by snow” and pedestrian crossings only partially cleared.
The institution announced the application of the delay clauses that provide for penalties of 0.06% of the contract value, which means a penalty of 1.6 million lei for each day of delay. This is one of the biggest daily penalties ever applied to a sanitation operator in Bucharest.
Additionally, “The General Directorate of Local Police of the Municipality of Bucharest fined the sanitation operator Romprest with 60,000 lei” for the deficiencies found in the field.
“In the face of the inability of the snow removal operator, the City Hall of Sector 1 will use all the levers provided by law for the daily life of the community to return to a minimum level of normality, in the conditions of this winter,” the announcement also states.
What Romprest says
On the other hand, Romprest claims that the decision to terminate the contract is illegal and brings an ANRSC document to support this claim. The company warns of a patrimonial risk of “minimum 1.12 billion lei” and states that the decision of the City Council of February 19, 2026 is equivalent to a unilateral denunciation.
The company insists that it has a contract until 2033 and accuses the Local Council of substituting itself for the court, given that a trial for the duration of the agreement is pending before the Bucharest Court.
This conflict has been going on for six years, having been triggered in 2020 after it was decided to temporarily stop payments for garbage collection. The dispute has so far generated 140 lawsuits won by the operator, who still has to recover from the local budget total debts of 116 million lei.
In this context, the City Hall paid Romprest approximately 2.5 million euros as a “waiting fee” for the snow in the winter of 2024-2025, an amount paid for 40 machines prepared for intervention.
The payment was the result of a compromise adopted last November: the City Hall accepted the settlement of the 40 machines in the contract, with the amendment that, when it is not snowing, 30 of them will be used for street cleaning. At the same time, Mayor George Tuță was empowered to announce the expiration of the contract in 2026, a decision that Romprest considers an unprecedented patrimonial risk.
