Romania’s High Court acquitted former communications minister Valerian Vreme of abuse of office charges in a case related to the authorities’ illegal purchase of overpriced Microsoft IT licenses.

The decision is not final and the prosecutors can file an appeal, local Agerpres reported.

Valerian Vreme, who was communications minister in the Emil Boc cabinet from September 2010 until February 2012, was sent to court for illegally prolonging a contract between the Romanian state and a firm registered in Austria, D.Con-Net AG, for the leasing of Microsoft IT licenses used in local public schools. According to the prosecutors, the initial contract signed in August 2009, didn’t allow such a subsequent contract to be signed.

The prosecutors also said that D.Con-Net paid EUR 2.61 million for the respective licenses, for which the Communications Ministry then paid EUR 13.9 million, thus causing a EUR 11.29 million damage to the ministry.

The case against Valerian Vreme is part of a wider investigation which spans over many years and which involved several former ministers. The only government official convicted following the Microsoft investigation so far was former communications minister Gabriel Sandu, Vreme’s predecessor, who was sentenced to three years in jail, in October 2016. He was released on parole in December 2017.

Romanian prosecutors: Microsoft licenses contract extension was useless

editor@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Adobe Stock)