Infracţiuni societare. Urmărire din oficiu sau la plângere prealabilă?
Offenses against Companies Act - Prosecuted ex officio or upon Preliminary Complaint?

Summary/Abstract: The new criminal proceedings legislation, which came into force on February 1st 2014, has formally changed the procedural regime of the offences incriminated by Company Act no. 31/1990. It repealed the text referring to ex officio prosecution of said offences. This legal amendment is subject to controversy. Prima facie, the ex officio rule is no longer in force, a true effect of the abolition of a legal norm. As a consequence, the investigation of the offences must be barred in the absence of the complaint of the victim (a shareholder of the company, the company itself or the affected third party). This logical conclusion is hardly compatible with the legality principle, since there are specific criminal provisions which state that the victim is entitled to start an investigation only in the cases where the law expressly allows it. As this is not the present case, we must admit that the Company Act offences still comply with the ex officio regime. Nonetheless, this assertion denies the immediate effect of a repealing norm. The study aims at detecting a legal solution to the issue in dispute.

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