Employees of energy companies that are entitled to purchase up to 10% of the companies in which they operate will do so until December 31, 2015, according to a draft of Emergency Ordinance initiated by the Department of Energy.

The privatization contracts of Electrica’s former subsidiaries (Electrica Moldova, Electrica Oltenia, Electrica Banat, Electrica Dobrogea, Electrica Muntenia Sud) and the ones of privatization of Distrigaz Sud and Distrigaz Nord state that employees, Board members and pensioners that had the last job at Electrica SA or in those gas companies have the right to acquire a maximum of 10% of the shares of that company.

The date by which employees could do so expires on December 31, 2014, but the Department of Energy calls its extension by one year to December 31, 2015, “because as the sale of shares to those who are employees of companies in the energy field responds to a particular public interest provided by the Romanian Energy Strategy, and the non-renewal of deadlines set by Government Emergency Ordinance no.116/2011 and by the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 114/2005 preclude achieving this goal, with the consequent loss of this right by the persons entitled to acquire the shares”, the Department said in the explanatory note.

This is also necessary “because there is a risk that persons entitled and could not exercise the legal right to acquire shares to submit a request to the competent court to claim their rights and order the Romanian government, state institutions and companies to pay damages as a result of not selling them.”

“As these circumstances are in connection with the public interest and contain the elements of an extraordinary situation that cannot be postponed, it is necessary the extension of that period to 31 December 2015, with the adoption of an emergency law with the same legal force”, say the authors of this legal initiative.