Bondoc si Asociatii, working with White & Case, has successfully represented Oltchim, acting through insolvency trustees BDO Business Restructuring and Rominsolv, before the General Court of the European Union.
According to Bondoc si Asociatii, this complex case concerned state aid allegedly unlawfully granted in the scope of the Oltchim restructuring. The firms have jointly challenged the “European Commission’s State aid decision no. SA.29041, according to which Romania had to recover alleged state aid consisting of various measures taken during 2012-2015 in connection with Oltchim’s restructuring. In its judgment rendered on December 15, 2021, the General Court ruled in favor of Oltchim. The ruling has dismissed the Commission’s inadmissibility plea and has concluded that – in respect of almost all of the measures under review – the European Commission had failed to demonstrate that these measures constituted State aid at all. The judgment may be appealed.”
According to the firm, “aside [from] the very high value at stake (approximately EUR 325 million), the complexity of the case stemmed also from the broad range of measures deemed by the EC to be unlawful State aid involving various different public authorities and State-owned companies, as well as from the necessity need to correlate multilayered complex State aid law concepts with numerous other legal provisions applicable in the case, including regarding Romanian restructuring & insolvency law, privatization law, corporate law, environment, and other regulatory matters.”
Bondoc si Asociatii’s team included Managing Partner Lucian Bondoc and Partner Simona Petrisor.