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In March 2020, the World Bank Arbitration Tribunal rejected claims against Romania worth more than 9 billion lei brought by Ioan and Viorel Micula and several Romanian companies associated with them, including S.C. Scandic Distilleries SA.
The Micula brothers have challenged the ruling, seeking its annulment.
But on Tuesday, 4 January 2022, the ad hoc Annulment Committee set up under the auspices of ICSID issued a decision rejecting the request for annulment of the 5 March 2020 arbitral award, the law firm representing Romania in the case announced.
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“The Annulment Committee’s decision finally closes the arbitration proceedings initiated by the Claimants in 2014 under the Agreement between the Government of Romania and the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden on the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments (“the Treaty”),” the lawyers said.
The Micula brothers initiated arbitration against Romania as early as 2014, which concerned a treaty between the Government of Romania and the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden on the mutual promotion and protection of investments.
In the arbitration, the brothers claimed that Romania had breached its international obligations under the Treaty by failing to properly enforce laws on the taxation of spirits and by adopting a new pricing regime for mineral water.
The Arbitral Tribunal rejected the Micula brothers’ claim last year and found that “Romania has engaged in serious and visible efforts to enforce its taxation laws in relation to alcohol” and that Romania “has shown that it has a comprehensive mechanism for enforcing its laws, a strategy to ensure cost-effective enforcement and an enforcement structure at both the individual household and industrial producer level, involving ANAF, Customs and DG Anti-Fraud.”
For its part, in its decision of 4 January 2022, the ad hoc committee decided, contrary to Claimants’ contentions, that the arbitration tribunal did not violate the fundamental rules of procedure and addressed all the claims made by the Micula brothers in the arbitration.
Romania was defended in the arbitration by a consortium of the law firms “Leaua Damcali Deaconu Păunescu – LDDP” of Bucharest and “LALIVE” of Geneva, Switzerland. The teams of lawyers consisted of Prof. Crenguța Leaua, Dr. Gheorghe Matei, Prof. Stefan Deaconu, Marius Grigorescu, Raluca Popa and Corina Tănase from LDDP, and Dr. Veijo Heiskanen, Matthias Scherer, Laura Halonen (consultant), Sam Moss and Alptug Tokeser from LALIVE.
Earlier, however, the Micula brothers won another lawsuit against Romania and, in order to recover their money, blocked the accounts of state-owned companies such as Romatsa. The compensation money – around 900 million lei – was paid by the Orban government at the end of 2019, so as not to block the activity of the companies with the affected accounts. This untimely payment led to the budget deficit target being exceeded in 2019.