The amendments brought by the Implementation Law of Government Emergency Ordinance No. 76/2010, according to which complaints against public procurement procedures are to be lodged exclusively with the National Council for Solving Complaints (CNSC), seem to emerge from the lawmaker’s constant desire to provide the necessary leverage for expediting the resolution of disputes that hold back the public procurement system. Although an acceleration of dispute settlement is to follow, the focus should be placed on the balance between such measures and the need to ensure fundamental guarantees of a fair trial.

Often times, fines are taken lightly by Romanian companies: misdemeanor fines are considered to be at the lowest level in Europe, labor fines cause barely a stir, but let the Competition Council show up for applying a penalty, and the entire management board will be on alert.

Almost anyone would recall Jack Nicholson, while sitting in the witness stand for crossexamination by an inexperienced defense attorney, impersonated by an emotional Tom Cruise, throwing one of his most intense lines ever: “You can’t handle the truth!”

I often think about this moment when I am faced with the oddities of the Romanian courts and the bizarre decisions which they from time to time issue.

One of the particular projects in which we are currently involved relates to one of the most important commercial companies of Romania, to its employees and their union.

Even though the case has become somehow public and has been already presented in the media, I shall refrain from giving any names, as the purpose of this brief analysis is to discuss matters rather than persons. Therefore, in the good tradition of legal drafting I will just say for the moment that the large Romanian commercial company shall be hereinafter referred to as the “Company”, whereas the relevant union of workers (of course one of the strongest in Romania, not only by headcount, but also by the ability of its leaders to pursue the rights and interests of the union members) shall be named, without any metaphor, the “Union”.