The Foundation For The Defense Of Citizens Against State Abuses has secured a definitive victory at the Bucharest Court of Appeal, with the court ordering the Romanian government to make public the details of the June 2022 meeting between representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Financial Supervisory Authority, and Euroins’ management.
On March 17, 2023, the ASF revoked Euroins’ license after identifying a capital deficit of over 2 billion lei, a development that inevitably led to the company’s bankruptcy. Following the successive bankruptcies of Astra Asigurări and City Insurance, Euroins had become, at that time, the largest car insurance provider in Romania, holding a market share of approximately 33% and managing over 2.8 million active policies.
FACIAS revealed that, seven months before the official declaration of insolvency, a meeting took place at the Romanian Government between representatives of Euroins, the ASF, and the Prime Minister’s Office. After learning of the existence of this secret meeting, FACIAS asked the government, led at the time by Nicolae Ciucă, to disclose the list of participants, the topic of the discussions, and whether similar consultations had taken place with the rest of the insurance market.
Instead of publicly clarifying an issue with a major impact on citizens, the government chose to remain silent and treat the meeting with Euroins representatives as an episode of no public relevance. For this reason, FACIAS took legal action against the Government to compel it to comply with the law on free access to information of public interest. During the proceedings, the Government acknowledged the meeting took place but attempted to avoid substantive debate by raising procedural arguments, which the appellate court has now definitively rejected.
FACIAS’s victory at the Bucharest Court of Appeal is crucial for determining whether the authorities knowingly ignored the disaster that was coming, namely the collapse of Romania’s largest car insurance provider. This disaster meant not only the loss of coverage for hundreds of thousands of Romanian drivers, but also a surge in car insurance rates, which have risen by as much as 40-50% from March 2023 to the present.
In this regard, FACIAS calls on the Romanian Government to comply with the court’s decision and to publish the requested documents and information in full. An analysis of these materials will form the basis for the next legal steps aimed at holding those responsible to account for this institutional failure, which has resulted in massive financial losses and left hundreds of thousands of citizens out of pocket.
As a reminder, FACIAS filed a criminal complaint against the ASF leadership back in March 2023, requesting an investigation into how the institution handled the Euroins situation, as well as an investigation into possible systemic negligence that led to the successive collapse of leading insurance companies.
In parallel with this initiative, FACIAS continues to fight against the lack of transparency of state institutions in projects that have a major impact on the rule of law. On May 18, FACIAS has a new court hearing in the lawsuit filed against the Government seeking to annul the decision to establish the Working Group for the amendment of the justice laws. FACIAS reiterates that this group was formed in a discriminatory and opaque manner, without any real public consultation, which undermines citizens’ trust in the government and in the fairness of the legislative process.