First expat manager under judicial control in corruption scandal in Romania

Romanian prosecutors placed Frenchman Bruno Roche, the former general manager of the investigated utilities company Apa Nova Bucuresti, under judicial control, after hearings at the headquarters of the National Anticorruption Directorate in Ploiesti. He is accused of buying influence in the corruption case involving Apa Nova and local officials. The judicial control doesn’t allow Roche to leave Romania or contact other people involved in this case. Laurent Lalague, another former Apa Nova manager, was also subpoenaed by DNA but didn’t show up, arguing that he was not in the country, and sent his lawyers instead. Apa Nova, the company that manages the water supply and sewage systems in Bucharest, which is controlled by French group Veolia, is in the middle of this year’s biggest corporate corruption scandal. The company’s French managers apparently bribed Bucharest’s high officials to accept higher water prices for consumers in Bucharest and spied on its own employees so that they wouldn’t talk about the illegal activities, according to DNA documents. Bucharest’s French water supplier, in the center of bribery scandal in Romania. editor@romania-insider.com