Charges dropped for Florica, Pescariu in Microsoft case but they have to pay 21 mln euros

The Bucharest Court of Appeal decided on Wednesday to cease the trial against businessman Claudiu Florica and former tennis player Dinu Pescariu, for committing the crime of money laundering in the Microsoft case, because the deeds for which they were charged fell under the statute of limitations.

The Court on Wednesday rejected the appeals declared in this case and upheld the decision of the Bucharest Tribunal in March 2020, by which the charges against Dinu Pescariu and Claudiu Florica were dropped as a result of the statute of limitations.

Also, the Bucharest Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the first court regarding the special confiscation of large sums of money, with Dinu Pescariu and Claudiu Florica having to pay 10,858,479 dollars each.

The court also decided to confiscate 1,070,557 dollars from suspect Stan Dragos Serban.

The total amount that the three have to pay thus amounts to over 22 million euros, representing the damage calculated by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) in this case.

Claudiu Florica and Dinu Pescariu were sued by DNA in February 2018 for money laundering, as representatives of Profinet AG and Slytehrin Marketing Ltd.

According to DNA, between December 2003 and October 2004, several government decisions were issued approving the conclusion of a commercial lease agreement between the Government of Romania and Fujitsu Siemens Computers for Microsoft educational licenses.

Prosecutors say that in those decisions, Fujitsu Siemens Computers' sole distributor of Microsoft licenses was unrealistically invoked in order to favor the company by avoiding a public tender. The extension of the commercial license agreement for Microsoft educational products was approved by Government's Decision 1778 of October 21, 2004, without a substantiated requirement.

The DNA also shows that the amount of 22,787,515 dollars, representing about a third of the undue profit obtained from the crime of abuse of office by Fujitsu Siemens Computers, was the subject of the money laundering offense. In order to conceal the illicit origin of the money, a fictitious consulting contract was concluded between Fujitsu Siemens Computers and Profinet AG.

According to the prosecutors, the persons involved in the operations regarding the concealment of the illicit origin of the money were Claudiu Florica and Dinu Pescariu, the latter being the final beneficiary of a part of the amount of over 22 million dollars.