One of Romania’s largest anticorruption trials to be reviewed over 10 years after final sentence

One of Romania’s largest anticorruption trials, involving politician and businessman Dan Voiculescu, who was given a 10-year sentence in 2014 for EUR 60 million damages caused to the state, will be reviewed after the Bucharest Court of Appeals in principle accepted the request filed by Voiculescu, according to Europa Libera.

Voiculescu and other defendants were sentenced for buying, respectively, facilitating the purchase from the research institute ICA of a plot of land, valued at EUR 60 million, for some EUR 100,000.

The Bucharest Court is also considering another request for review, filed by Voiculescu and the other defendants in the case, with a deadline set for March 13. In this procedure, a magistrate has already ordered the suspension of the recovery of the damage.

The request for the review challenging the recovery of the damage invokes a decision rendered in September 2025 by the President of the High Court, Lia Savonea, according to Europa Libera and Profit. Savonea argued that a European law was applied retroactively in the process, but also found that the liability of judge Camelia Bogdan, who decided in the trial, had expired. However, Savonea’s conclusions were used by Voiculescu's lawyers to open the review procedure.

Savonea argued that former judge Camelia Bogdan ordered the recovery of the damage by applying European legislation on extended confiscation (Directive 2014/42/EU on the freezing and confiscation of instrumentalities and proceeds of crime in the EU; Framework Decision 2005/212/JHA of the Council of the European Union on the confiscation of proceeds, instrumentalities and property related to crime), although it was not transposed into Romanian legislation at that time.

(Photo: Khwaneigq/ Dreamstime)