Romanian prosecutors close investigation on missing highway contract with Bechtel

The Prosecutor’s Office of the District 5 Court in Bucharest closed the case investigating the disappearance of the original contract concluded between the Romanian state and the US group Bechtel. The case was closed because some of the crimes expired based on the statute of limitations. The file had been initially opened by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), which later declined its authority and passed the case to the Prosecutor’s Office of the District 5 Court. The former infrastructure minister Dan Sova submitted a complaint at DNA in 2013 after the Government's Control Body couldn’t find the original contract with Bechtel for building the Transylvania Highway that was supposed to connect Brasov to Oradea and go further to the border with Hungary. The Suplacu de Barcau-Bors segment of the Transylvania highway had been only partially built by American group Bechtel before the state cancelled the contract in 2013. Having already paid EUR 1.4 billion for around 50 kilometers of highway, the state agreed to pay additional penalties for canceling the contract. editor@romania-insider.com