Dozens of state firms exempted from corporate governance in Romania

Romania’s Chamber of Deputies voted yesterday a bill that exempts dozens of state companies from corporate governance rules. These include the state-owned airline Tarom, the Romanian Post, the Bucharest metro operator Metrorex, railway operator CFR, gas carrier Transgaz and electricity carrier Transelectrica. Ordinance 109 from 2011 introduced corporate management for most state-owned companies. Basically, all the large state-owned companies will now be exempt from corporate governance, National Liberal Party (PNL) MP Virgil Popescu said yesterday. Cristina Pruna, an opposition MP from the Union to Save Romania (USR) party, said that the parliamentary majority has taken advantage of the chaos created in recent days in relation to the justice laws to exempt tens of state-owned firms from corporate governance rules, reports local Mediafax. The ordinance on corporate governance, which was among the requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financing Romania after the financial crisis, obliged state companies to appoint their board members and top executives through a transparent selection process. It banned political appointments. However, the ordinance was never fully implemented and some state companies were exempted from it. The Foreign Investors Council (FIC) reacted yesterday to the Chamber’s decision saying that such measures only deepen the investors’ mistrust in public institutions. “Without corporate governance rules for state owned companies, Romania will not fulfil the criteria for joining the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an objective included in the foreign policy chapter of the governing program,” FIC also pointed out. editor@romania-insider.com