The teams of White & Case LLP and Bondoc & Asociatii SCA have jointly successfully assisted and represented Oltchim S.A. (acting through insolvency trustees BDO Business Restructuring S.P.R.L. and Rominsolv S.P.R.L.) before the General Court of the European Union.

This complex case concerned State aid allegedly unlawfully granted in the scope of the Oltchim restructuring. 

Bondoc & Asociatii SCA and White & Case LLP have assisted Oltchim in challenging the European Commission’s State aid decision no. SA.29041, according to which Romania had to recover alleged State aid consisting of various measures taken during 2012-2015 in connection with Oltchim’s restructuring.

In its judgment rendered on 15 December 2021, the General Court ruled in favor of Oltchim. The ruling has dismissed the Commission’s inadmissibility plea and has concluded that – in respect of almost all of the measures under review – the European Commission had failed to demonstrate that these measures constituted State aid at all. The judgement may be appealed.

Aside the very high value at stake (approx. EUR 325 million), the complexity of the case stemmed also from the broad range of measures deemed by the EC to be unlawful State aid involving various different public authorities and State-owned companies, as well as from the necessity need to correlate multilayered complex State aid law concepts with numerous other legal provisions applicable in the case, including regarding Romanian restructuring & insolvency law, privatization law, corporate law, environment and other regulatory matters.

The teams involved in the preparation of the case were large and multidisciplinary and also involved constant support from the insolvency trustees Rominsolv S.P.R.L. and BDO Business Restructuring S.P.R.L..

The pleading lawyers at Luxembourg were Christoph Arhold and Kai Struckman from White & Case LLP and Lucian Bondoc and Simona Petrisor from Bondoc si Asociatii SCA.