Past scandals force companies to re-register

All the companies not nationally represented will have to change their names in case they include the “national”, “institute” and “Romanian” words, following a Government decision recently endorsed by the Senate’s Judicial Committee. Anyone found in breach of this will have to pay a fine of up to 50 million ROL.
“The Government, you see, has tried sorting things out as far as companies are concerned. The best example is Fondul National de Investitii (National Investment Fund – FNI). Everybody went there, as it was a national company, after all. CEC (Romanian Savings Bank) came into play, Remes (former Finance minister) and the Finance Ministry also intervened and led people to believe they’d better go there. In a just a few weeks, about 200-300 thousand people had turned to FNI, the biggest national scam. They actually were thieves that took advantage of the people’s good faith. The National Institute for Applied Seismology? A bunch of crooks that teamed up and forecast earthquake and the end of the world…! Yet people thought they were “national”… The Romanian-American University? When did Romania and America found a university together?” This is how Senator Ion Predescu, secretary of the Judicial Committee argued the need for such a restriction yesterday.
“These restrictions to use the “national”, “institute” and “Romanian” words are necessary or else they make people think the companies using such words in their names are subordinated to the State. Which is not the case for some of them. We’ve had cases of obscure companies that used their names to gain people’s trust,” said UDMR (Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania) senator Peter Eckstein-Kovacs, member of the Judicial Committee.
The Judicial Committee on Tuesday endorsed the Government Ordinance completing Law 26/1990 on Trade Registry. The Government felt “the use of the national and Romanian words, which are indistinguishable from the State concept, within the name of a corporate body is likely to unduly give the appearance of a connection between the entities in question and the state authority.” It therefore ruled to have any company applying for registration and using “national”, “Romanian” and “institute” within its name (likely to make it appear as a public institution, or an institution of public national or local interest) secure the approval of the state institution ruling its field of endeavour first. For instance, as Senator Ion Predescu says, the Romanian-American University has to seek approval from the Education Ministry first. If not, then it is liable for a fine. The Senators set the same fine for everybody – 50 million ROL, as inspired by the French model.
Ion Predescu explained what every owner of a company covered by this law was supposed to do as soon as it was published in the Official Gazette. He said they had to go to the Trade Registry, say they had a company and be advised to change the name, which should be set according to the company’s respective industry.
oana.iurascu@zf.ro