ABOUT THE CORRUPTION IN ROMANIA, WHICH DESTROYS BUSINESSES AND LIVES
CHAPTER III – WHO ARE THE INDIVIDUALS INVOLVED?
- Who is Nicolae Cristinel Olaneanu?
Shareholder and founder with a significant weight in Farmec SA, I have legally invested and acquired 34.5% of Farmec SA, and then I was reduced to 8% by illegal increases in the share capital with the support, assistance and protection of the Judicial Authorities.
I was born on October 10th, 1962 in Craiova, I have been living for 35 years in Bucharest – Romania, and I have the following e-mail address: olaneanu@gmail.com. I am an entrepreneur who, invested in and developed several businesses over the last 25 years, and who looked how they are destroyed little by little by the corruption of a state system that does not sanction, but actually even encourages the corruption.
- WHAT IS FARMEC SA AND WHAT DOES IT REPRESENT?
Farmec SA is the largest manufacturer of cosmetics, household and chemical products in Romania, the brand of Gerovital H3, lotions and creams, make-up products, hair and body products, dermocosmetics, men’s products; Aslavital lotions and creams; Farmec products for hands; Triumf, a solution for cleaning cookers, dishes, ovens, disinfection; Nufăr for unclogging and cleaning drains, for furniture and parquet, Nufăr – stain remover; Farmec insectox; Farmec – beach products, para-pharmaceutical products being the most representative products.
Farmec’s successful story began in 1889 – the first and most important Romanian cosmetics company – when the Molnar Moser laboratories are opened in Budapest. In 1943 a small laboratory is to be detached – Mol-Mos – which operated in Cluj-Napoca, and in 1995 Farmec was privatised through the MEBO method, becoming a company with 100% Romanian capital.
Starting with 1995 and until now, Farmec SA is a close company, according to Art. 8 of the statutes: „the nominative shares are transferable only between shareholders” … „the shares acquired under the conditions of these instrument of incorporation can be transferred to third parties only by legal inheritance „(See Annex 323).
- WHO ARE THOSE WHO SPOLIATE FARMEC? WHO ARE TURDEAN AND PANTEA.
Liviu Turdean, Pentru Iacob Pântea, Mircea Liviu Turdean, Mihaela Turdean, Horea Turdean, Ioana Turdean, Lucian Pîntea, Sebastian Bria (nephew of Pantea Petru Iacob) are people who have exercised or still exercise – in a harmful way – the executive control over Farmec SA, getting to be majority shareholders from managers and administrators of the company, through the fraudulent manoeuvres disclosed below.
The „BUSINESS” with refined alcohol usable in the manufacture of spirits, which was purchased at Farmec SA between 2007 and 2018, without showing the documents stipulated by the Law at item 22 par. 34) of the Methodological Norms for the Application of the Fiscal Code, was permanently the ace up the sleeve and the „magic key” that allowed Turdean and Pantea to do whatever they wanted with the shares of the company, to become the „owners” of Farmec from the managers, to get favourable solutions from ANAF, prosecutor’s offices, court houses, tribunals, courts of appeal, the Supreme Court, the Office for Prevention and Fight Against Money Laundering (…), even if these decisions taken institutionally violate the Law, the Constitution and the European Law and place themselves ABOVE THE LAW!
(a) Liviu Turdean was born in 1934 in Grebenis, Cluj County, and died in 2017, a time when he was for more than 40 years (until 2011), the manager of Farmec – a state-owned company and subsequently a private company.
It is commonplace since the communist era to take advantage of the position of general manager and to obtain additional benefits to the lawful ones, considering that what belongs to others also belongs to him and for many years having the cosmetic products of the FARMEC factory for himself and high-ranking individuals in those times, Turdean Liviu did not change this mentality with the transition to the market economy and privatisation of the factory, but acted to seize the entire company together with Pântea Petru Iacob and later with members of the two families through repeated and constant actions of illegal transfer of most of the company’s shares on behalf of these people, regarding the company as a personal fief, which they exploited for their own interest.
(b) Peter Iacob Pântea was an expert accountant and chief of the Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Cluj-Napoca.
Like most of the large companies in the communist economy, after the events of 1989 the privatisation of SC FARMEC SA was done with funds from the company’s patrimony, but with the money of collaborators, employees and pensioners. Then, by putting into practice a long string of illegalities – a well-known scenario – FARMEC was „confiscated” by Turdean Liviu, manager of the company also before and after the privatisation. It should be noted that, on the date of privatisation, the date when each shareholder had to invest from their own sources, the members of the Turdean and Pântea families, summed up, did not waste more than 0.5% of the value of the share capital at the time, in order to purchase shares in Farmec SA.
Thus, in 1995, on the date of company’s privatisation, the date when Farmec SA became a private wholly owned company, the manager TURDEAN LIVIU invested the equivalent value of 1,323 shares, and PÂNTEA PETRU IACOB (as external collaborator of the company) invested the equivalent value of 1,475 shares, which means that the two managers had at that time a total of 2,798 shares, which together represented 0.43% of the company’s share capital.
The General Manager Liviu Turdean co-opted in the company first his younger son, Mircea Turdean, and his wife Ioana Turdean Miclaus, and later his eldest son, Turdean Horea and his wife Mihaela Turdean while Pântea Petru Iacob first brought into the company his nephew/godson, Sebastian Bria – as censor – and, in 2011, his son, Lucian Pîntea.
Between 1998 and 2016, the binomial consisting of Turdean and Pântea proposed and ordered the increase of the share capital by 5,294,256 shares at the (historical) price of 2.5 lei / share, equivalent to 0.5 Euros/share, by means of measures with express dedication preventing me to participate in these increases and without imposing a first issuance to equalise the rights of the existing shareholders with the rights conferred by the new shares. In this way, the members of the Turdean and Pântea families acquired approximately 77% of the newly issued shares, currently reaching to have about 60% of the company’s shares, compared to the shares acquired in 1995 and which represented 0.4% of the share capital at the time of privatisation (see Annex 2 – excerpt from the register of shareholders), correlatively my percentage legally held of Farmec’s share capital from 34.5% to 8%, I was deprived of collecting the dividends I deserve, amounting approximately 2,000,000 Euros.
- WHO ARE THE COMPANIES GALIC AND PRESTIGE.
Who are the companies PRESTIGE and GALIC involved thereto
My wife and I or both together, we are the founders of Prestige Trading SRL, hereinafter referred to as Prestige and of Galic Prod SRL, hereinafter referred to as Galic, companies that have been operating on the market of import and distribution of cosmetic products. All these companies suffered, over time, patrimonial losses, as a result of the effects of an endemic corruption, losses that have affected my legitimate interests as investor in these business. This memorandum describes how the companies Farmec, Prestige and Galic have been disadvantaged or devalued by the complicity of public and private servants who have defrauded the state budget and caused losses to the companies whereto I am an associate.
(a) Prestige Trading SRL, hereinafter referred to as Prestige, is identified with the Trade Registry under the sole registration number 5956942 and has mainly developed contractual business relations with Colgate Palmolive Romania for 12 years, the value of the transactions was of 90,000,000 US Dollars, and with Kraft Foods it developed a value of the transactions of 35,000,000 US Dollars.
In order to ensure the achievement of contracts with Colgate Palmolive, Kraft Foods, Unilever South Central European in good conditions, the companies Prestige and Galic have been concluded over time, individual labour contracts with more than 1,000 employees and have made investments in the material base, IMPOSED by the policy of the partner companies, investments that exceeded 10,000,000 US Dollars. But, related to the history, the companies did not reward their partners with reciprocity.
The companies Prestige and Galic are in insolvency due to the aforementioned causes, respectively due to the anticompetitive practices that were protected by the Competition Council, the General Prosecutor of Romania and the courts of law.
(b) Galic Prod SRL, hereinafter referred to as Galic, was under contract with Unilever South Central Europe, and has developed transactions amounting 70,000,000 US Dollars.
- WHO ARE THE COMMERCIAL COMPANIES PROTECTED BY THE COMPETITION COUNCIL.
The involvement of some officials of the Competition Council and intelligence service officers and the violation of the law by Colgate Palmolive, Kraft Foods, Unilever South Central Europe, Orkla Foods, Glaxo Smith Kleine, Carrefour, Artima (which became Carrefour), Kaufland, Billa, Profi, Plus Discount, etc., in relation to which the Romanian Competition Council refused to carry out investigations and to fulfil irrevocable court decisions.
In the context of a personal interest of a Romanian Intelligence Service officer, regarding the company in which his son is a shareholder, the officer was involved in the privatisation of DERO SA in Ploiesti, which was transferred into the patrimony of Unilever Group, then Unilever removed from the clients from the contract, including Galic, keeping only the company belonging to the intelligence service officer’s son, namely the company Aquila Part Prod Com, in relation to which the intelligence service officer had a personal interest, that benefited from lower prices when purchasing Unilever products, compared to the prices which Galic purchased the same products with, and the Competition Council refused to investigate the complaint of the plaintiff Galic. Later, Bogdan Marius Chiritoiu, president of the Competition Council, replaced the rapporteur Dragos Popescu and closed the investigation of Unilever, its clients and competitors, which does not exclude the fact that the contracts between private companies and state’s institutions were influenced, directed and controlled by officers of the Romanian Intelligence Service.
Thus, Razvan Dociu, in the period when he worked as an officer with the military rank of Lieutenant Colonel within the Romanian Intelligence Service and was detached from the Central Intelligence Agency to the Prahova Department of the Romanian Intelligence Service, carried out activities that also included the „supervision” of the privatisation of the state-owned companies DERO SA, ROVIT SA, GFR, Vinalcool Valea Calugareasca SA.
Following the privatisation, all the aforementioned companies, with the registered office in Prahova County, have entered into the patrimony of some legal entities and individuals, respectively the DERO SA factory became the property of
Unilever Limited Europe, Vinalcol Valea Calugareasca was taken over by British investors, the new name being Cramele Halewood, Grupul Feroviar Roman-GFR (Romanian Railway Group), the most valuable company of the group of companies GRAMPET SA is owned by Gruia Stoica, and the former IAS Valea Calugareasca became SC ROVIT SA.
Along with the transfer of Dero SA to the patrimony of Unilever Group, the following were included in the “package” (a) the company Aquila Part Prod Com, for the distribution of Unilever’s non-food and food products, such as Knorr, Rama, etc. and (b) Alexandru Suciu, Commercial Manager related to the sale of Unilever products. Later, Alexandru Suciu was helped to hold the position of Commercial Manager in the organisational chart of the Unilever Group, an occasion to also watch over the business between the companies Aquila Part Prod Com and the Unilever Group.
The shareholders of Aquila Part Prod Com are Catalin Vasile and Alin Dociu, whose father is Razvan Dociu, Lieutenant Colonel at the Romanian Intelligence Service, who has been empowered and delegated by the Romanian Intelligence Service to watch over the privatisation of DERO SA and to transfer its property to Unilever Group in Romania and in the region.
At the time of transferring SA in Prahova County to the patrimony of Unilever, the plaintiff company Galic Prod had already been under contract with Dero SA for a few years and sold detergent in the amount of about 10,000 tons per year.
The company Aquila Part Prod Com received a „gift” of exclusivity from Unilever for the logistic transport to Romania and to the countries in the area and the distribution of Unilever products, a few additional percentages compared to the company Galic which carried out the same services and at the same time/simultaneously, the exclusion of the plaintiff Galic Produc and other companies from the contract with Unilever, with Unilever’s failure to comply with the Competition Law and the contract that had been concluded between Unilever, Galic Prod and other distributors.
The complaint of the plaintiff Galic Prod SRL to the Competition Council (see Annex 3) was not investigated by the Competition Council, which refused to relate the plaintiff’s complaint with the investigation with the same goal that was opened in the case of Unilever, and later the president Bogdan Marius Chiritoiu replaced the rapporteur Dragos Popescu, ignoring the content of the Note drawn up by the rapporteur on the indications of a possible violation of Art. 5 of the law by SC UNILEVER SOUTH CENTRAL EUROPE SRL and by the clients and competitors of this company, after that closing the investigation in the case of Unilever, without the consent of the Competition Council Plenum.
However, as a result of anti-competitive practices and agreements of Colgate Palmolive Romania, Kraft Foods and Unilever South Central Europe, practices prohibited by the Competition Law no. 21/1996, the aforementioned contracts have ceased, with the consequence that Prestige and Galic have registered huge financial losses, under the conditions where their exclusion from these contracts was the result of anticompetitive agreements, with the result of favouring certain economic agents and the depreciating the competition. The contracts between Prestige and Orkla Foods and GlaxoSmithKline, Carrefour Romania, Billa Romania, Kaufland Romania and the contracts between Unilver South Central Europe, Galic and its partners (…) were carried out following a similar „pattern”.