General Prosecutor''s Office dragged into oil war between Patriciu and Iancu brothers

The clash of the Romanian petroleum industry”s heavyweights – Dinu Patriciu, the chairman of the Rompetrol Group, and the Iancu brothers, the owners of Balkan Petroleum – is getting fiercer.

The repercussions are starting to show in the trend followed by shares in Rompetrol Rafinare (Petromidia), that fell 7% yesterday, causing investors losses of 47 million euros.

The conflict, which publicly began last year, now involves the General Prosecutor”s Office, after the head of Rompetrol alleged that a confidential document in the Petromidia privatisation file, put together by prosecutors, ended up in the hands of one of the competitors, who is using it in court against Rompetrol.

“We are strongly demanding an immediate and complete investigation into how an internal document of the National Anticorruption Prosecutor”s Office, prepared by prosecutor Adriana Cristescu, ended up in Faber”s possession, and what other connections may exist between the investigating authorities and Faber,” Dinu Patriciu yesterday told a news conference especially convened for this purpose.

Patriciu was accompanied by one of the group”s executives, American Phil Stephenson, and by lawyer Obie Moore, from Salans, called in to look after the interests of the Rompetrol Group shareholders.

Faber Trade & Invest, headed by Alexandru Iancu, took over 5% in Rompetrol Rafinare from SIF Transilvania last autumn. In its position as Petromidia shareholder, Faber filed a lawsuit against Rompetrol Rafinare and AVAS (the State Assets Resolution Authority) with the Bucharest Court of Law, demanding that Petromidia”s privatisation contract closed in 2000 between Rompetrol and the former APAPS (the current AVAS) be declared null and void.

“We have drawn up and will file today (i.e. yesterday) a complaint to have the guilty parties held liable,” Patriciu said.

He added that the document in question had been requested by Rompetrol representatives from the prosecutors, based on domestic and international legislation, but they were not granted access to it.

“In the recent case brought to court, Faber offered, unintentionally, clear and public proof that it obtained confidential documents from the National Anticorruption Prosecutor”s Office. Faber is using this information illegally to complete its blackmail mission against The Rompetrol Group which it started in March 2004, just a few weeks before the publication of the infamous Talpes report,” Rompetrol representatives say.

“The significant thing here is that this time Faber included an annex in the file submitted to the Bucharest Court of Law, which is a confidential document, drawn up by the National Anticorruption Prosecutor”s Office in 2004 and signed by Adriana Cristescu, who then moved to the Prosecutor”s Office within the High Court of Cassation and Justice and continues to investigate 14 former and current shareholders and managers of Rompetrol,” Patriciu explained.

The scandal between Patriciu and the Iancu brothers has been going on for some time, but it first came out in the open last year, when Patriciu publicly stated that he was being blackmailed for having opposed a merger of Petromidia and Rafo Onesti, the refinery controlled by Balkan Petroleum.

adrian.mirsanu@zf.ro