Banat-Crisana Financial Investment Company (SIF), one of the plaintiffs in the legal action against Banca Agricola (the Agricultural Bank), did not withdraw its complaint last Thursday. It requested that a new court date should be set, to have enough time to decide what to do next.
The other party involved, SIF Muntenia, on Thursday withdrew its complaint in court, which Teodor Mihaiescu, SIF president mentioned, as well.
After SIF Muntenia and SIF Banat-Crisana's having announced they would drop the lawsuit against Banca Agricola's majority stockholder early last week, things did not go as expected during the latest court date on Thursday.
As soon as SIF Muntenia's lawyers announced dropping the suit, which made most of those attending the session sigh in relief, SIF Banat-Crisana's lawyers said the officials of the company they represented had yet to decide what to do next and requested a new court date.
"We were almost stunned to see we had no idea what the other was doing. The suit goes on, of course, and all the scandal about the consummation of this privatisation will go on," authorised sources told Ziarul Financiar.
Although the same sources say SIF Banat-Crisana has neither the financial power nor the political authority to move on with the suit, the legal action delays the completion of the capital increase, which was requested in the first place by the buyer of the bank, that is the consortium comprised of Austria-based Raiffeisenbank and the Fondul Romano-American de Investitii (Romanian-American Investment Fund).
Contacted by Ziarul Financiar, Teodor Mihaiescu, SIF Muntenia president was unable to provide details about the compensations he got to drop the lawsuit, but mentioned the legal actions about recovering the losses registered because of those to have managed the bank throughout 1997-1999 would go on.
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