CSA withdraws authorisation of Aviva heads on account of irregularities

The Insurance Supervisory Commission (CSA) decided in August to withdraw the authorisations given to Bartos Janos, president of the Board of Directors of Aviva Asigurări de Viață (Aviva Life Insurance) and to Shah Rouf, former CEO and member of the Board of Directors, after detecting a series of irregularities that went as far as inaccurate accounting figures reported for 2008 and 2009.

The decisions, which came into force in August, were published in the Official Gazette. This is one of the toughest penalties imposed by the regulating insurance authority over the last few years. Such penalties were in the past imposed on managers of companies placed under special administration, as was the case of Ardaf (in 2006), Euroasig (2009), and KD Life, this year. Placement under special administration is the toughest penalty that the CSA can impose against a company, with the next step, if the situation fails to improve, being to declare bankruptcy.

Neither of the two managers penalised are in Romania any more, although they still feature in the Trade Register with their respective positions in the Board of Directors.

The decisions to cancel the authorisations have been adopted by the Council of the Insurance Supervisory Commission (CSA) after analysing a report put together by the institution’s control team, which detected no less than 34 breaches of insurance legislation in the case of each manager, according to information published in the Official Gazette.