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Bucharest Court Decides to End Trial Against Two Businessmen In “Microsoft 2” Case

Judges from the Bucharest Court decided on Thursday to close criminal proceedings against businessmen Dinu Pescariu and Claudiu Florica, who were investigated for money laundering in a notorious case regarding state purchases of Microsoft licenses.
Bucharest Court Decides to End Trial Against Two Businessmen In “Microsoft 2” Case
Ionut Preda
10 mai 2019, 20:31, English

The court argued that the country’s former general prosecutor, Augustin Lazar, did not provide proper authorization to prosecute the offences invoked by the country’s National Anticorruption Directorate against the two.

Sources close to the investigation told MEDIAFAX that general prosecutor did not authorize prosecution in the case for offences committed by Romanian citizens on the territory of other states in the case, as the two businessmen transferred sums of money several times between Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

The decision is not final and can be appealed.

Prosecutors accuse that damages in the case, which also involved former Communications Minister Gabriel Sandu and former Microsoft Romania General Director Calin Tatomir, were upwards of EUR51 million to the country’s bugdet.

According to the indictment, Pescariu and Florica, representing a company wanting to win a public auction for software licenses, bribed the former minister with approximately EUR2.2 million, in exchange for him approving restrictive rules for the auction in order to favor their company.