Romanian Senator accused of peddling his influence for EUR 100,000

Romania’s anticorruption prosecutors have requested the Senate to approve the arrest of the social-democrat senator and former Infrastructure Minister Dan Sova on charges of influence peddling. Sova allegedly brokered a legal assistance deal of EUR 10,000 per month between the state-owned thermal power plant CET Govora and a private law firm, according to prosecutors. He received EUR 100,000 from the law firm for his services between October 2011 and July 2014. The senator got the money in tranches, namely EUR 5,000 per month, or half of the contract’s monthly value. The prosecutors detained yesterday Mihai Balan, the general director of CET Govora. The Romanian prosecutors also asked the Parliament to approve the arrest of Sova in March this year in another case on three charges of complicity in abuse of office, in a case targeting several legal assistance contracts between electricity producer Complexul Energetic Oltenia and Sova’s law firm, but the MPs refused. The former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who had collaborated with Sova’s law firm for a while, was also indicted by DNA in that case. editor@romania-insider.com