Vadim Benyatof, Credit Suisse’s managing director for central and eastern Europe, and three Romanian government officials will spend nearly three weeks in jail while prosecutors stage a criminal investigation of the sale of state-owned assets:
“The court admitted the request by prosecutors to put them under preventive arrest for 20 days,” Cazanciuc said in a telephone interview late yesterday.
Prosecutors said last week they were investigating Benyatov and seven other men for economic espionage related to the sale of government assets. Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, advised on the sale of Romanian oil and gas companies in 2004 and this year worked on the sale of the country’s remaining stake in a phone company.
The criminal investigation, the first involving international investment bankers in Romania in the past decade, comes as the country prepares to join the European Union on Jan. 1. The EU has repeatedly told Romania to crack down on corruption to make sure competition rules are respected.
“We have no reason to believe that any Credit Suisse employee has acted inappropriately,” Credit Suisse said yesterday in a statement e-mailed from London before judges in Bucharest approved the men’s arrest. “We take these accusations very seriously and are prepared to cooperate fully with the investigation.”
Credit Suisse Manager, Officials Face Romanian Assets Probe – Bloomberg
Tags: Credit Suisse, Legal
