Wave of criminal complaints in the IT platform scandal, worth tens of millions of euros, which should connect state databases

The new head of the Authority for the Digitization of Romania (ADR), Cătălin Giulescu, filed a criminal complaint on Wednesday, May 20, against the former dismissed president of the authority, Dragoș Vlad, whom he accuses of abuse of office, after the cancellation of the tender for the IT platform that was supposed to connect the state's databases.

A day ago, Dragoș Vlad filed a criminal complaint, against the interim deputy prime minister Oana Gheorghiu and the interim minister of Digitalization, Irineu Darău, whom he accuses of repeated pressures for violating the law on public procurement.

Criminal complaint against the former head of ADR

The new president of ADR, Cătălin Giulescu, on Friday filed a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice by which he requested the investigation of Dragoș Cristian-Vlad under the aspect of committing the crime of abuse of office, in order to find out the truth and recover the damage caused to ADR, the institution announced on Wednesday.

The criminal complaint follows the decision of May 15, 2026, by which the new ADR president, Cătălin Giulescu, ordered the cancellation of the public procurement procedure initiated in the context of the implementation of the “National Interoperability Platform” (PNI) project.

ADR points out that “the decision ordering the cancellation of the public procurement procedure was based on the finding of a series of irregularities and flagrant deviations from the applicable legal framework in the field of public procurement.”

The launch of the public procurement procedure was done prematurely, without fulfilling the conditions expressly stipulated by the law, in the sense that, on the date of publication of the announcement, namely on 10.02.2026, there was no Government decision adopted regarding the necessity and opportunity of making investment expenses related to the “National Interoperability Platform – PNI” project, a mandatory act that opens the legal right to make expenses from the public budget and validates the opportunity of the investment.

Concretely, although the Ministry of Economy, Digitization, Entrepreneurship and Tourism requested the ADR to suspend the procurement procedures related to the PNI project, Dragoș Cristian-Vlad, at the time of the commission of the deed president of the ADR, ignored both the request of the Ministry and the legal provisions expressly provided by Law 500/2002 on public finances, an imperative rule which assumes that, before the start of the investment procedures, “the related technical and economic documentation new investment objectives/projects and the approval documentation for intervention works, the substantiation notes regarding the necessity and opportunity of carrying out the expenses related to the other categories of investments (…) which are financed, according to the law, from public funds, are approved by the Government, for values greater than 100 million lei”.

The IT auction will resume

Additionally, the new president of ADR, Cătălin Giulescu, issued another decision on Wednesday, May 20, “by which he ordered the resumption of the necessary procedures so that the PNI investment can be carried out, but in compliance with the legal framework and under conditions that ensure the judicious spending of public funds, simultaneously with ensuring the necessary premises for the implementation of appropriate solutions, correlated with technological evolution”, the ADR press release also says.

The total value of the “National Interoperability Platform” project is over 164.4 million lei, of which the non-refundable FEDR eligible value is 123.2 million lei, and the non-refundable eligible value from the national budget is over 41.1 million lei.

Criminal complaint against Oana Gheorghiu and Irineu Darău

On the other hand, the former president of ADR, Dragoș Vlad, filed a criminal complaint a day ago, against the interim deputy prime minister Oana Gheorghiu and the interim minister of Digitalization, Irineu Darău, whom he accuses of repeated pressure, in order to violate some legal provisions in the field of public procurement and pressure to find solutions to collaborate with the Schwartz group of companies, informs Mediafax.

In the complaint/denunciation, Vlad talks about:

• “approaches that led to the cancellation of a public procurement procedure related to a strategic pillar of the digitization component in Romania, with the consequence of seriously damaging public interests and with the risk of losing non-refundable European funds in the amount of approximately 164,471,182.97 lei;
• repeated pressure on the undersigned, in order to violate some legal provisions in the field of public procurement;
• repeated pressures to quickly find solutions to collaborate with the SCHWARTZ group of companies (which certainly aimed to acquire material benefits from the actions – pressures -, namely the conclusion of preferential contracts with the authority whose president I was and, in the end, I was dismissed)”.

Present at Antena 3, Draoș Vlad stated that the first meetings were with the Minister of Economy, Irineu Darău, on January 12, where he was informed of the next meeting, on January 19, with the Schwartz group.

“In that meeting and address, because they also marked through an address, they expressly requested a situation of investments from PNRR, government cloud investment, digital skills, respectively the robotization process in the public administration, to present the status in each situation of the projects and investments. The discussions did not stop only at the first acquaintance meeting, respectively management. They continued with repeated requests until the 19th,” he said.

Vlad claimed that “the services offered by this company were already provided by the partner STS”. Dragoş Vlad also said that an address followed, through which the technical specifications of the various platforms, of the various infrastructures, the mechanism in which such infrastructures are maintained, were requested to be the subject of future maintenance services and support services.

In a reaction to Dragoș Vlad's approach, Oana Gheorghiu stated that “she hopes that the prosecutors will urgently analyze the so-called facts, which would be just a smoke screen, intended to distract attention “from the state in which the digitalization of the Romanian state shows today”.

Why was the auction cancelled? Two reasons cited by Minister Irineu Darău

The interim Minister of Digitalization, Irineu Darău (USR), claimed on Monday, May 18, that the main reason for the cancellation of the tender for the IT platform that should have ensured the automatic exchange of data between public institutions, so that Romanians no longer stand at the counter, is that it was not based on a government decision. However, public data consulted by HotNews show that such an act had been initiated since November 2025 by the former Minister of Digitization Radu Miruță (USR), but was no longer approved by the Government. Miruta moved to Defense a month later.

“Why was this decision necessary? The old management prematurely started an auction of over 164 million lei without having the mandatory legal basis (Government Decision for the approval of the technical-economic indicators). This generated an imminent legal deadlock: the state would have been legally unable to commit the expenses and sign the contract at the end of the evaluation. It is inadmissible for the state's money to be committed ignoring the fundamental laws of finance public, aspects on which there have been repeated warnings, including from ANAP”, said Irineu Darău.

Beyond legality, interim minister Irineu Darău also accuses, the technical solution was advanced “without real consultations”.

“The specifications related to the canceled procedure forced the Romanian state to buy closed, proprietary technologies (COTS), with unsustainable maintenance costs and without a long-term funding source to scale the system to the whole administration. In addition, the old project ignored the new European Interoperability Regulation (EU 2024/903). Romania does not need a centralized and outdated “hub”, but a modern, decentralized and sovereign platform, where the state has total control over its data”, says the Acting Minister of Digitization.

The auction, launched 3 months ago. Irineu Darău was the minister himself

The financing contract for this platform was signed in March 2025, at the Government, in the presence of the then Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu (PSD) and the Minister of Digitalization, Bogdan Ivan (PSD).

The procurement procedure was launched on February 10, 2026 in the Electronic Public Procurement System. The IT contract, with an estimated value of over 123.8 million lei (about 25 million euros), financed with European funds, was launched during the mandate of the recently dismissed president of ADR, Dragoș Vlad, and during the mandate of Irineu Darău at the Ministry of Economy and Digitalization (MEDAT).

Three groups of companies submitted bids in this procedure, according to data from the Electronic Public Procurement System (SEAP).

The GD that Darău says is missing was initiated by his predecessor

The main reason cited now for canceling the tender is the lack of mandatory legal justification, namely the adoption by the Government of a decision to approve the technical-economic indicators for this project.

Such a decision was not adopted, but it had been initiated in November 2025 by the former Minister of Digitalization Radu Miruță, now at Defence.

“In order to achieve the milestones assumed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan – PNRR, Component C7 – Digital transformation and with a view to developing the integrated architecture of the infrastructure of digital services, Law 242/2022 was adopted on the exchange of data between IT systems and the creation of the National Interoperability Platform. This law guarantees the principle of “just once” and the direction of disparate and winding public services around the end user.

The normative act establishes the National Interoperability Platform necessary to ensure the interoperability of public information systems for the provision of public services, as well as the access to information by legal entities under private law or natural persons practicing regulated liberal professions, and ADR is designated as the sole administrator of the national interoperability platform”, it was stated in the explanatory note to the GD draft.

In December 2025, Radu Miruță took over the leadership of the Ministry of Defense, his party colleague, Irineu Darău, took over the leadership of the Ministry of Economy, and the GD project regarding the costs and necessity of the PNI platform was no longer promoted on the Government's agenda.

However, the tender of tens of millions of euros was launched in February 2026.