State company managers could be appointed without competition in Romania

Most state-owned companies could be allowed to appoint managers without competitions, except for the companies that have concluded international financing agreements, according to an amendment initiated by the governing parties PSD and ALDE, reports local Profit.ro. The Government will be able to introduce this measure through a simple decision and override from the current law. This will allow Government to appoint managers for state-owned companies in a discretionary way. It will not be possible if the appointments violate loan agreements concluded with international financial institutions. A draft project submitted at the beginning of this year provided that only two defense companies and the National Meteorological Administration could be exempt from the corporate management selection procedure. However, senators later included other state-owned companies to the list. The state-owned companies were obliged to select their managers and board members by competition after the emergency ordinance (OUG) 109 from 2011 came into force. Romania was pressured by international financial institutions, such as the IMF, to adopt this ordinance on corporate governance in the public sector. However, the ordinance was never fully implemented. editor@romania-insider.com