They were appointed by the state to act in the interest of the state and of Oltchim’s minority shareholders, and now the question is whether they too will be held responsible and even face justice.
They were responsible for the Oltchim disaster because they voted in favor of decisions that led to losses of EUR300 million in the past five years and a half and to cumulated debts of EUR700 million.
Most of the Oltchim board members voted in the past ten years in favor of the proposals of general manager Constantin Roibu, who was for a long time also chairman of the Board of Directors.
Having been politically appointed by economy ministers, the directors either did not see or ignored the worsening of Oltchim’s situation.
The only ones who challenged Oltchim strategy were PCC representatives, who were then brought to court by Oltchim, which accused them of unjustifiably blocking the company’s activity, especially financing.
The biggest number of changes to Oltchim’s board of directors happened in the past year, with many of the board members quitting a few weeks later, after seeing how serious the company’s situation was.
The main responsibility lies with those who supported bad strategic decisions, which caused Oltchim to collapse after ten years. One such decision was to sell Arpechim refinery together with Petrom to Austria’s OMV, which prompted Oltchim to lose control over its main source of raw material. Another was the forced conversion into shares of Oltchim’s debts to AVAS in 2003, without giving a subscription right to minority shareholders. This led to the capital increase being cancelled in court and to Oltchim’s debts rising significantly, to an increase in PCC’s stake and to the current financial deadlock.
Specialists say banks are also to blame because they have continued to finance Oltchim in the past few years, although the company’s losses increased and it had negative equity capital, which contributed to the company’s overindebtedness.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)