Romanian financial crime law is codified in the Criminal Code (Law no. 286/2009, “CC”) and in a series of special statutes. There is no separate corporate offence regime: in principle, the same offences apply to individuals and to legal persons.

The principal offences are:

Embezzlement, Article 242 CC (6 months to 3 years or fine); fraud, Article 244 CC (6 months to 3 years; 1 to 5 years where false identities or other fraudulent means are used); insurance fraud, Article 245 CC (1 to 5 years); computer fraud, art. 249 CC (2 to 7 years); fraud against the EU budget is dealt with separately under arts. 18¹–18⁵ of Legea nr. 78/2000 (2 to 7 years for use of false or incomplete documents; 1 to 5 years for diversion of funds), with the limits increased by one half where the damage exceeds RON 2,000,000. Forgery offences (Articles 320 – 326 Criminal Code) often accompany the principal charge.

Money laundering, Article 49 of Law no. 129/2019 (3 to 10 years); self-laundering is excluded. The offence is autonomous: no conviction for the predicate offence is required, and the offence exists irrespective of whether the predicate was committed in Romania or abroad.

Tax evasion. Law no. 241/2005; core tax evasion under art. 9 now carries 3 to 10 years (raised from 2–8); aggravation: +3 years where damage exceeds EUR 500,000 and +5 years above EUR 1,000,000; Art. 9¹ (cross-border VAT fraud damaging the EU budget by at least EUR 10m) and the new art. 9² (domestic VAT schemes causing at least EUR 1m) both carry 7 to 15 years; fraudulent refund claims: art. 8 (3 to 10 years; and 5 to 15 years in the associative form).

Corruption. Passive bribery, art. 289 CC (3 to 10 years); active bribery, art. 290 CC (2 to 7 years); trading in influence, art. 291 CC (2 to 7 years); buying influence, art. 292 CC (2 to 7 years). Art. 308 CP extends arts. 289 – 292, 295 and 297 – 300 to persons performing any task in the service of a legal person, with the special limits reduced by one third; this is the private-sector bribery regime. Law no. 78/2000 adds assimilated offences and increases the limits by one third for senior officials and magistrates (art. 7) and for abuse of office producing an undue benefit (art. 13²). Art. 294 CP extends the corruption offences to foreign and international officials.

Market abuse. Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 applies directly, supplemented by Law no. 24/2017 on issuers of financial instruments and market operations, which transposes Directive 2014/57/EU and contains both administrative and criminal liability provisions.

Sanctions. Since Law no. 224/2025, breach of EU and international sanctions is a criminal offence under the new art. 27¹ of OUG nr. 202/2008, transposing Directive (EU) 2024/1226. Twelve categories of conduct are criminalised (making funds available to designated persons, failure to freeze, circumvention, breach of reporting duties and others), with 1 – 5 years in the basic form, 2 – 7 years where the assets exceed EUR 100,000 or dual-use goods are involved, and up to 5 to 12 years for military-list products. Negligent commission is punishable (6 months–3 years).

Other offences frequently charged: misuse of company assets (art. 272 of Law no. 31/1990), fraudulent bankruptcy (art. 241 CC), abuse of office (art. 297 CC) and negligence in office (art. 298 CC).

Romania has had a general regime of corporate criminal liability since 2006, now in art. 135 Criminal Code. It applies to all legal persons, except the State and public authorities; public institutions are partly exempt, only in respect of activities that cannot form the object of the private domain.

Attribution. Art. 135(1) Criminal code provides that a legal person is criminally liable for offences committed in the performance of its business scope, or in its interest, or in its name.

Three features of corporate criminal liability are:

1. Romania adopted a general liability model, not a list-based one: in principle, any offence can be committed by a legal person.
2. Liability is direct and autonomous rather than derivative; liability does not depend on convicting – or even identifying – the individual who acted. There is no identification doctrine and no requirement that a particular natural person be identified, charged or convicted.
3. 135(3) expressly preserves the criminal liability of any natural person who contributed to the same act.

There is no formal “adequate procedures” or compliance defence. A compliance programme is relevant evidentially (it may support an argument that the act was a frolic of the individual rather than committed in the entity’s interest) and at sentencing, but it is not a statutory answer to liability.

Penalties. The only principal penalty is a fine, set on a day-fine basis under art. 137 Criminal Code: 30 to 600 day-fines of RON 100 to RON 5,000 each, giving a general maximum of RON 3,000,000, increased by one third where a patrimonial benefit was pursued (art. 137(5)). The court fixes the daily value having regard to turnover or net assets.

Complementary penalties (art. 136(3) Criminal Code) may be cumulated: dissolution (art. 139), suspension of activity for 3 months to 3 years (art. 140), closure of business units (art. 142), prohibition on participating in public procurement, placement under judicial supervision for 1 to 3 years (art. 144), and display or publication of the conviction (art. 145). Art. 141 CP exempts public institutions, political parties, trade unions, employers’ associations, religious bodies, minority organisations and press entities from dissolution and suspension.

The most commonly prosecuted offences personally applicable to company directors and officers are tax evasion; embezzlement and fraudulent management; fraud; use of false documents; money laundering; giving bribes, buying influence and private-sector bribery; offences connected with insolvency; and offences affecting EU funds.

Directors are prosecuted for what they authorised, performed, knowingly tolerated or assisted, not simply because they hold office. However, signing powers, statutory accounting duties, control over bank accounts and actual management frequently make directors the evidential focus. De facto managers and finance personnel may be liable on the same basis.

Romania has no investigating magistrate. Criminal investigations are directed by prosecutors; four prosecution bodies matter for financial crime.

The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) is an autonomous directorate within the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court and operates under Government Emergency Ordinance no. 43/2002. Its competence is set by art. 13: corruption offences where the damage exceeds the RON equivalent of EUR 200,000 or the bribe exceeds EUR 10,000; a long list of office-holders irrespective of value (ministers, MPs, magistrates, mayors, directors of State companies, lawyers, police and customs officers); abuse of office, rigging of public auctions and related offences where the damage exceeds EUR 1,000,000. Since Law no. 126/2024, DNA also has competence over certain tax evasion matters where the damage exceeds RON 10 million, and may investigate related money laundering autonomously. DNA prosecutors must conduct the investigation personally, and are supported by seconded judicial police officers (art. 10) and by in-house financial, banking, customs and IT specialists whose technical findings constitute evidence (art. 11).

DIICOT (Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism), under Emergency Ordinance no. 78/2016, covers economic offences committed within the scope of an organised criminal group; health-related crimes; customs-related crimes; embezzlement involving damages exceeding RON 200,000, cybercrime and computer fraud, capital-markets offences, money laundering derived from its own offences, and – since Law no. 126/2024 – certain large-scale tax evasion offences above RON 10 million. Law no. 224/2025 gave DIICOT competence over the new international sanctions offences.

The EPPO has, since 2021, become the prosecution body in EU-budget cases. Romania has a European Prosecutor and 20 European Delegated Prosecutors working from Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi and Timisoara. Under Directive 2017/1371, the EPPO has competence over PIF offences, including cross-border VAT fraud causing at least EUR 10 million of damage.

Ordinary prosecutor’s offices retain jurisdiction over everything else: corruption below the DNA thresholds, ordinary fraud, tax evasion below RON 10 million.

Financial crime cases are heard by the ordinary criminal courts. There is no jury; all cases are decided by judges.

First-instance competence depends on the offence and the defendant’s official capacity. The tribunal is the usual white collar forum: bribery and trading in influence, embezzlement and related service offences in their aggravated forms, organised crime and cybercrime offences, all offences investigated by DNA or DIICOT, money laundering and tax evasion, and all offences investigated by the EPPO.

The district courts retain residual competence over ordinary fraud and lesser offences.

An investigation is triggered by a complaint, a denunciation, the acts of other statutory finding bodies, or ex officio.

In financial crime, the practically important triggers are the acts of the administrative regulators: tax authorities, the FIU, Court of Accounts reports and Competition Council referrals.

Persons holding management positions in public authorities are obliged to report offences prosecuted ex officio. In 2025 ANAF’s antifraud directorate alone made 820 criminal referrals, with estimated damage of RON 1.31 billion.

Dawn raids are common and are a rather standard opening move; computer searches are routinely bundled with the physical search.

Compelled production is available against any natural or legal person, and against communications providers, subject to a reasonable suspicion standard.

Special investigative techniques include interception, access to computer systems, obtaining financial transaction data, undercover investigators and controlled deliveries. Technical surveillance requires judicial authorisation, subject to the cumulative conditions of reasonable suspicion, proportionality and subsidiarity.

Prosecutors and judicial police may hear suspects, defendants, witnesses, injured parties and legal entities’ representatives; the court hears them again at trial.

Suspects and defendants. The hearing begins with questions on identity and personal circumstances, followed by a free narrative and then questions. The hearing must be suspended if the person shows visible signs of excessive fatigue or illness that affects their capacity to attend the hearing. A detained person may exceptionally be heard by videoconference, but where legal assistance is mandatory, the hearing may take place only in the lawyer’s presence at the place of detention.

Witnesses. Any person with knowledge of relevant facts may be called; a summoned witness must appear, take the oath and tell the truth, and false testimony is a criminal offence. Where a person holds another capacity (expert, lawyer, mediator, representative of a party), the witness capacity prevails as to facts known before that capacity was acquired. Spouses, direct ascendants and descendants, siblings and former spouses of the suspect and persons in similar relationships have the right to refuse to testify and must be informed of that right.

Attendance can be compelled where a person summoned failed to appear without justification, or where circumstances show evasion. A suspect or defendant may be brought under warrant even before a first summons where this is required in the interests of the case. A person brought under warrant may be held only for the duration of the hearing, and in any event no longer than eight hours.

A legal person is heard through its legal representative. Where criminal proceedings are brought against both the legal person and its legal representative for the same or connected facts, the entity must appoint a special representative; failing that, the prosecutor or the court appoints one from among licensed insolvency practitioners.

There is no power to compel a suspect to answer questions. The right to silence is absolute, and the judicial body must warn of it before every hearing.

Right to a lawyer. Suspects and defendants have the right to defend themselves or to be assisted by a lawyer. Legal assistance is mandatory in certain cases: where the suspect/defendant is a minor, is detained or arrested (even in another case); where the judicial body considers that he could not defend himself; and during the preliminary chamber and trial in cases carrying life imprisonment or imprisonment exceeding five years. Most serious white collar offences cross that threshold. Following the May 2024 laws transposing Directive 2013/48/EU, any waiver of the right to a lawyer must be voluntary and unequivocal, must be recorded in writing, does not preclude later exercise of the right, and must be preceded by information given “in plain and accessible language”. A lawyer may attend any act of criminal investigation other than special surveillance measures and body searches in flagrante cases, and lawyer–client communications in custody are confidential and may not be intercepted.

Right to silence. The suspect or defendant has the right not to make any statement at any point in the proceedings, with the express statement that this attracts no adverse consequence; they must be so warned about this before being heard.

Witnesses. This is the most significant recent development. Law nr. 201/2023 introduced the full right of the witness to silence and non-self-incrimination: the witness has the right not to state facts which, if known, would incriminate him; the judicial bodies must inform him of that right before every hearing; evidence obtained in breach is inadmissible; a statement given as a witness by a person who had or later acquires the status of suspect cannot be used against him; and the witness may be assisted by a lawyer during questioning. In corporate investigations, where the “witness” interview was historically a route around defence rights, this has changed practice materially.

Information about the accusation. The Criminal Procedure Code requires the judicial body to inform the person of the capacity in which he is heard, the act alleged and its legal classification, and of his other rights; before the first hearing in the investigation, this must be communicated in writing and signed. The defendant must also be informed of the possibility of a plea agreement and of the sentence reduction available on admitting the charge at trial.

Pre-interview disclosure. There is no right to advance disclosure of the evidence before an interview. The Criminal Procedure Code gives the lawyer the right to consult the file throughout the proceedings, which may not be arbitrarily denied, but the prosecutor may restrict consultation by reasoned decision where this could prejudice the investigation, for a maximum of 10 days once the criminal action has been set in motion. Counsel may never be denied access to his own client’s statements.

Recording. Audio or audio-video recording of suspect and defendant interviews during the criminal investigation is mandatory; the only exception is technical impossibility, which must be recorded with a concrete statement of the reason.

Yes, on several bases, but the practical work is done by the territoriality rule rather than by any dedicated extraterritorial statute.

Territoriality. Romanian criminal law applies to offences committed on Romanian territory, including on Romanian-flagged vessels and Romanian-registered aircraft. The Criminal Code contains a broad ubiquity rule: an offence is deemed committed in Romania where an act of perpetration, instigation or complicity was carried out there, or where the result occurred there, even in part. This is the most important extraterritorial hook in Romanian practice.

Active personality. Romanian criminal law applies to offences committed abroad by a Romanian national or a Romanian legal person. Where the penalty under Romanian law is life imprisonment or exceeds 10 years, no dual criminality is required; in all other cases, the act must also be an offence under the law of the place of commission.

Passive personality. Art. 10 CC covers offences committed abroad by foreign nationals against the Romanian State, a Romanian national or a Romanian legal person, subject to authorisation by the General Prosecutor and to the absence of proceedings in the State of commission.

Universality. Art. 11 CC applies to treaty-based offences where the foreign offender is voluntarily present in Romania.

Sector-specific reach. Law no. 129/2019 on money laundering applies the money laundering offence irrespective of whether the predicate offence was committed in Romania, in another Member State or in a third State.

Art. 294 CC extends the corruption offences to officials of foreign States, EU and international organisation officials, members of foreign parliamentary assemblies, international judges and foreign jurors. Importantly, art. 294 CP is not jurisdictional; jurisdiction over foreign bribery must still be established under the rules above.

Yes, and cooperation within the EU is routine and high-volume.

The framework statute is Law no. 302/2004 on international judicial cooperation in criminal matters. It covers extradition, the European Arrest Warrant, mutual legal assistance, transfer of proceedings, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, joint investigation teams, the European Investigation Order, freezing and confiscation orders, and relations with Eurojust and the European Judicial Network.

The EPPO is now the most significant channel in EU-budget cases. Romania is a participating Member State with 20 European Delegated Prosecutors.

Beyond the EPPO, Romania participates fully in Eurojust, Europol and OLAF; joint investigation teams are frequently used in economic-crime practice, typically with Eurojust or Europol support.

Outside the EU, cooperation runs on various conventions and bilateral instruments. It may be slower, but it exists and is frequently used.

According to DNA’s 2025 activity report, the Anticorruption Department worked with authorities from the USA, the UK, India, Ukraine, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Poland, Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania and Moldova.

Professional secrecy is a matter of public order in Romania, broader than in many other countries.

Materials. Professional papers held by the lawyer or in his office are inviolable. A search of the lawyer, of his home or of his office, and the seizure of documents and goods, may be carried out only by a prosecutor under a warrant issued by a judge. However, lawyer-client communications, defence papers and notes drafted by the lawyer may not be seized.

Interception. The relationship between a lawyer and clients may not be the object of technical surveillance unless there are data that the lawyer himself is committing or preparing to commit an offence. Where surveillance nonetheless captures lawyer-client communications, the material may not be used in any criminal proceedings and must be destroyed immediately by the prosecutor.

In-house counsel. Romania has no in-house counsel privilege. Sensitive advice should be routed through, and the investigation conducted by or under the direction of, external Bar-admitted lawyers, with the work-product held in the external firm’s file.

Romania applies the standard EU two-track regime. Processing by companies is governed by the GDPR and by the national implementing measures in Law no. 190/2018. Processing by competent authorities for the purposes of preventing, investigating and prosecuting offences is governed by Law no. 363/2018, transposing Directive (EU) 2016/680. The supervisory authority for both tracks is the National Supervisory Authority for the Processing of Personal Data (ANSPDCP).

For companies, the most operationally important provision is art. 5 of Law no. 190/2018 on employee monitoring, which governs the legality of reviewing employee email, forensically imaging company devices and reviewing CCTV in an internal investigation. Monitoring is permitted only where the employer’s legitimate interests are duly justified and prevail, employees have been given prior, complete and explicit information, the trade union or employee representatives have been consulted, less intrusive means have proved ineffective, and the retention period is proportionate.

On the investigation side, individuals and companies retain the rights conferred by Law no. 363/2018 (information, access, rectification, erasure, restriction), subject to the restrictions permitted for the purposes of the investigation.

Yes. Romania has express statutory successor criminal liability in case of corporate reorganisations.

The Criminal Code provides that where a legal person loses legal personality through merger by consolidation, merger by absorption or spin-off occurring after the commission of the offence, criminal liability and its consequences may pass to the entity created by the merger, to the absorbing entity, or to the entities created by the spin-off or which acquired parts of the divided entity’s assets. There is no formal good-faith or due-diligence defence on the face of the text.

As the Criminal Code speaks of criminal liability “and its consequences”, the complementary penalties also pass to the absorbing/new entity. The one that matters most commercially is the prohibition on participating in public procurement procedures.

The trigger is loss of legal personality, not change of control. A share acquisition does not engage the successor liability: the target retains its legal personality and remains liable in its own right, and the buyer simply inherits the risk economically. An asset purchase likewise falls outside it. But a post-closing intra-group merger brings the criminal liability into the absorbing entity.

For M&A purposes this means criminal-liability diligence is a legal necessity, not a nicety, in any transaction involving corporate mergers or spin-offs.

Romanian criminal procedure is founded on the principle of legality: prosecution is in principle mandatory where the legal conditions are met. Opportunity considerations enter only through the narrow gateway of waiver to prosecution (art. 318 Criminal Procedure Code).

The decision proceeds through three thresholds. The investigation is opened in rem where the act of referral meets the formal conditions and none of the bars in art. 16(1) CPP applies (art. 305(1) CPP). It continues in personam (the person becoming a suspect) where there is evidence generating reasonable suspicion that an identified person committed the act (art. 305(3) CPP). The criminal action is then set in motion by the prosecutor where she/he finds that there is evidence from which it results that a person has committed an offence and no art. 16(1) bar applies (art. 309 Criminal Procedure Code); this last step is the true charging decision and the precondition for the more intrusive preventive measures.

At the close of the investigation, art. 327 Criminal Procedure Code requires the prosecutor to issue an indictment where the investigation shows that the act exists, that it was committed by the defendant and that the defendant bears criminal liability. The indictment is subject to verification of legality and soundness by the hierarchically superior prosecutor.

The bars in art. 16(1) Criminal Procedure Code that most often determine the outcome in white collar cases are: the act does not exist or is not provided for by criminal law or it was not committed with the state of mind required by law; there is no evidence that a person committed the offence; a statutory cause of non-punishment exists; and expiry of the statute of limitations.

Where the prosecutor waives prosecution under art. 318 Criminal Procedure Code, the public interest test requires her/him to weigh the content of the act, the manner and means of commission, the purpose pursued, the consequences produced or which could have been produced, the effort of the investigative bodies relative to the gravity of the act, and, where the perpetrator is known, her/his person, her/his prior conduct and her/his efforts to remove or diminish the consequences. That decision is not final until confirmed by the preliminary chamber judge.

The standard is proof beyond any reasonable doubt, stated expressly in the Code.

Art. 103(1) Criminal Procedure Code establishes free evaluation of evidence: no item of evidence has a value pre-established by law, and all evidence is subject to the free assessment of the judicial bodies following an evaluation of all the evidence administered in the case.

Art. 103(2) provides that, in deciding on the existence of the offence and the guilt of the defendant, the court must give reasons for its ruling by reference to all the evidence evaluated, and that “conviction is ordered only where the court is convinced that the accusation has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt”.

Art. 4 sets out the presumption of innocence and provides that, after the administration of all the evidence, any doubt in the formation of the conviction of the judicial bodies is interpreted in favour of the suspect or defendant.

Art. 103(3) adds a distinctive safeguard which is frequently litigated in white collar cases: a judgment of conviction, of waiver of the application of the penalty, or of postponement of the application of the penalty may not be based to a decisive extent on the statements of undercover investigators, of collaborators or of protected witnesses. This tracks the ECtHR’s “sole or decisive” doctrine and matters most where the prosecution case rests substantially on a cooperating co-defendant, a very common configuration in Romanian corruption and tax-fraud files.

Art. 102 excludes unlawfully obtained evidence. The preliminary chamber (arts. 342 – 347 Criminal Procedure Code) is the stage where exclusion is argued, and in practice it is the most important battleground in Romanian white-collar litigation.

Yes; and limitation has been the defining issue in Romanian white-collar practice for the last eight years.

Art. 154 Criminal Code sets the terms by reference to the maximum penalty provided by law: 15 years (life or over 20 years), 10 years (over 10 up to 20 years), 8 years (over 5 up to 10 years), 5 years (over 1 up to 5 years), 3 years (up to 1 year or a fine). Time runs from the date of commission; for continuous, continued and habitual offences, from the date the conduct ceased or the last act. Art. 155(4) CC provides an absolute long-stop: the art. 154 terms, once exceeded by an equal period (i.e. doubled), are deemed fulfilled however many interruptions have occurred. Only genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and intentional offences resulting in death, rape, human trafficking and torture are imprescriptible; no white-collar offence is.

There is a special, recent rule for tax evasion: the limitation period runs from notification of the tax authority or the criminal investigation body, but not later than 10 years from the date of commission.

The interruption saga. Constitutional Court Decision no. 297/2018 struck down the phrase “any procedural act in the case” as an interruption ground. The legislator did not intervene for four years. Constitutional Court Decision no. 358/2022 then held art. 155(1) on interruption unconstitutional in its entirety, because what remained was not a norm capable of application. Emergency Ordinance no. 71/2022 restored interruption, but only through procedural acts which, under the law, must be communicated to the suspect or defendant. The High Court of Justice held that the rules on interruption are substantive criminal law, subject to lex mitior.

The combined effect was that, between 25 June 2018 and 30 May 2022, no ground of interruption existed, and, as the more favourable criminal law, that absence applied retroactively to all pending cases concerning offences committed before 30 May 2022. A very large number of corruption, tax-fraud and EU-funds prosecutions were terminated. DNA reported 307 defendants whose proceedings ceased in 2024, 272 of them attributable to Decision no. 358/2022, and 354 in 2023.

The CJEU decisions. In Case C-107/23 PPU Lin (24 July 2023), the CJEU held that, while national courts are not required to disapply the constitutional court judgments themselves, they must disapply the national lex mitior standard where it would call into question the interruption of limitation by procedural acts predating the finding of invalidity, in cases of serious fraud affecting the EU’s financial interests. In Case C-280/25 Lin II (16 July 2026), the Court went further: fraud exceeding EUR 50,000 in total is “serious” for PIF purposes regardless of the portion damaging the EU budget directly; Romanian courts must disapply ÎCCJ Decision no. 67/2022 in non-final serious PIF-fraud proceedings; but res judicata is preserved, so cases finally decided on limitation grounds are not reopened.

The position as at August 2026 is still unresolved. Courts have begun applying Lin II to reopen EU-funds and tax evasion cases. The Prosecutor General has taken the position that Lin II applies only to EU-funds fraud and tax evasion above EUR 50,000 and not to domestic corruption; the National Anticorruption Directorate considers that Lin II applies also to corruption cases; the High Court of Justice has defended the national constitutional and ECHR standard. For all other economic crimes, the national position stands and the 2018 – 2022 interruption-free window remains a live defence.

Romania has no deferred prosecution agreements and no non-prosecution agreements, for individuals or for legal persons. There is no mechanism by which a prosecutor may suspend or forgo prosecution in exchange for a corporate undertaking to pay a penalty, remediate, install a monitor or cooperate. The only negotiated instrument in Romanian criminal procedure is the plea agreement (Q18), which produces a conviction pronounced by a court.

Yes. After the criminal action has been commenced, the defendant and prosecutor may conclude a guilt-admission agreement under Articles 478 – 488 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Availability. The agreement may be concluded during the criminal investigation, after the criminal action has been set in motion, between the prosecutor and the defendant. The initiative may come from either side. Where there are several defendants, separate agreements may be concluded with each.

Scope. An agreement may be concluded only in respect of offences for which the law provides a fine or imprisonment of not more than 15 years.

Approval. The agreement requires the prior written endorsement of the hierarchically superior prosecutor establishing the limits within which the agreement may be concluded, and a further endorsement of the concluded agreement. In practice the prosecutor must obtain a written negotiating mandate before negotiating. Legal assistance is mandatory.

Content. The agreement covers the acknowledgment of the act and its legal classification, and the type and quantum of the penalty and the manner of its execution. The defendant benefits from a mandatory reduction of one third of the statutory limits for imprisonment and one quarter for fines.

The court’s role. The court may admit the agreement and pronounce the agreed solution or reject it where the conditions are not met or where it considers the agreed solution unlawful or unjustifiably lenient in relation to the gravity of the offence or the dangerousness of the offender.

The alternative. At trial, the defendant may request that the case be tried only on the evidence gathered in the investigation and on documents, if she/he admits in full the acts set out in the indictment. The statutory punishments are reduced by one third for imprisonment and one quarter for a fine. There is no negotiation, the offence scope is not capped, and acquittal remains possible.

In practice, plea agreements have become central to DNA’s output: 170 in 2023, 238 in 2024 and 253 in 2025 against only 114 indictments in 2025.

There is no general duty on every company to self-report all discovered misconduct. But specific duties do exist. Art. 266 CC (Failure to denounce) is confined to offences against life or resulting in death, and does not reach any economic, fiscal or corruption offence. Art. 267 Criminal Code (Mandatory reporting) binds public officials only, in respect of offences connected with the service in which they perform their duties; “public official” has a broad meaning in criminal law, also encompassing persons who perform a public-interest service within a private company or who are subject to supervision or licensing in respect of that public service. Art. 269 Criminal Code (Accessory after the fact) is the provision to watch in internal investigations: steps taken to shield an employee or impede an investigation can expose the company and its officers.

Benefit of voluntary disclosure. The honest answer is that self-reporting confers no systemic benefit on a company in Romania. There is no DPA or NPA regime, no declination policy, no published prosecutorial guidance on cooperation credit and no statutory corporate cooperation discount. The available benefits are narrow and largely personal to individuals: complete impunity for the briber if the briber reports the offence before the authorities are otherwise alerted; non-punishment or halving in certain tax evasion matters; halving of the limits for persons denouncing other people’s serious offences.

Note also the carve-out in art. 75(1)(d) Criminal Code: full repair of the material damage before the first hearing is a legal mitigating circumstance, but it is expressly excluded for corruption offences, offences assimilated to corruption, offences against the EU’s financial interests and money laundering.

Romania has no sentencing guidelines. Sentencing is a matter of judicial discretion within the statutory special limits. Uniformity is pursued only indirectly, through rulings on points of law issued by the High Court of Justice, which bind on law but not on quantum.

General criteria (art. 74 Criminal Code). The court fixes the penalty by reference to the gravity of the offence and the dangerousness of the offender, assessed on: the circumstances and manner of commission and the means used; the state of danger created; the nature and gravity of the result and other consequences; the motive and purpose; the nature and frequency of criminal antecedents; conduct after the offence and during the proceedings; and the offender’s education, age, health and family and social situation. Art. 74(1)(f) is the only real hook for crediting corporate cooperation and remediation, and it is entirely discretionary.

General circumstances. General legal mitigating circumstances include full repair of the material damage before the first hearing, but this is expressly excluded for corruption offences, assimilated offences, offences against the EU’s financial interests and money laundering. Judicial mitigating circumstances include efforts to remove or diminish the consequences. Where a mitigating circumstance is found, the special limits are reduced by one third. In the case of aggravating circumstances, a penalty up to the special maximum may be applied and, if that is insufficient, an increase of up to 2 years of imprisonment, but not more than one third of the special maximum, and, in the case of fines, an increase of one third of the special maximum.

Discount policies. Romania’s leniency mechanisms are statutory and mechanical rather than discretionary: a one-third reduction of the limits for imprisonment (one quarter for fines) on admitting the charge at trial, or on concluding a plea agreement; halving of the limits for denouncing others’ serious offences; and the non-punishment and halving regimes for tax evasion and for giving bribes.

Alternatives to immediate imprisonment are limited. Deferral of the penalty requires a fine or a term of imprisonment of not more than 2 years and is barred outright where the penalty provided by law is 7 years or more, which excludes most core white collar offences. Suspension under supervision requires a sentence of not more than 3 years and is the more commonly available option.

Compliance programs are not regulated in Romania as means to avoid or decrease the criminal liability.

However, a compliance programme still matters. First, as to liability, a demonstrably effective programme is evidentially relevant to whether the act was committed in the interest of or on behalf of the entity, or was merely a frolic of the individual. Second, when determining the sentence, the court may consider as mitigating factors the entity’s conduct after the offence and during the proceedings, as well as its efforts to remove or diminish the consequences. Third, in relation to complementary penalties, the existence and quality of remediation should be relevant to whether the court imposes harsher or lighter penalties.

One further point: Directive (EU) 2026/1021 on combating corruption, in force since 31 May 2026, makes a legal person liable where the offence results from inadequate supervision and imposes turnover-linked fines. When transposed (the deadline is June 1, 2028), it will create, in substance, the compliance incentive Romanian law currently lacks.

Individuals. Custodial sentences are available and, for the core offences, substantial on paper: 3 – 10 years for passive bribery (art. 289 CP), 2 – 7 years for active bribery (art. 290 CP) and trading in influence (art. 291 CP), 2 – 7 years for abuse of office (art. 297 CP), 3 – 10 years for money laundering (art. 49 of Law no. 129/2019) and for tax evasion under art. 9 of Legea nr. 241/2005, 7 – 15 years for the large VAT-fraud offences, and 2 – 7 years for embezzlement (art. 295 CP).

In practice, sentences at the lower end of the range are common for first offenders, and the statutory reductions may bring substantial benefits: a one-third reduction of the limits for admitting the charge or entering into a plea agreement, and a further one third for mitigating circumstances.

Corporates. The only principal penalty is a fine, generally capped at RON 3,000,000 (RON 4,000,000 in certain cases) – approximately EUR 600,000 to EUR 800,000. By international standards that is very low, and far below the administrative maxima available under AML and competition law. Corporate prosecutions remain uncommon relative to individual ones: DNA indicted 41 legal persons in 2023, 28 in 2024 and 42 in 2025, against 610, 655 and 750 individual defendants respectively.

The financially meaningful consequences for a corporate are not the fine. They are: special and extended confiscation; asset freezing during the proceedings; civil damages awarded to the injured party; and, commercially, the complementary penalty of debarment from public procurement.

The exception to the modest-fine picture is sanctions, where corporate day-fines range from RON 3,000 to RON 835,000, producing theoretical maxima in the region of RON 250 million.

A first-instance judgment is generally subject to appeal on fact and law by the defendant, prosecutor and other parties within the statutory time limit, normally ten days from service of the minutes/judgment. The appeal suspends execution and is devolutive: the appellate court re-examines the case in fact and in law, may re-administer evidence and administer new evidence, and gives a new decision on the merits or orders retrial.

Extraordinary remedies. There are certain extraordinary remedies, mainly on limited listed procedural grounds, which do not suspend execution. However, revision is available on broader grounds, such as new facts, false testimony, the declaration of unconstitutionality of the provision on which the conviction was based, or following a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights.

Constitutional and supranational review. Any party, the prosecutor or the court ex officio may raise an exception of unconstitutionality before the Constitutional Court; a finding of unconstitutionality is a ground of revision. Individual application to the ECtHR is available after exhaustion of domestic remedies.

The authorities were very active in 2025.

The Public Ministry as a whole handled over 1.75 million cases in 2025 and resolved over 530,000.

DNA. Its 2025 report records 114 indictments (against 131 in 2024 and 132 in 2023), 253 plea agreements (238 and 170), and 792 defendants sent to trial (a 16% increase). The acquittal rate fell to 9.59%, from 21.52% in 2024 and 26.88% in 2023, and case restitutions fell from 6.42% to 1.63%.

DIICOT. In 2025 it had 48,279 cases to resolve (up 12.93%) and resolved 19,311 (up 27.12%).

EPPO. At 31 December 2025, the EPPO had 535 active investigations in Romania with estimated damage of EUR 6.05 billion, second only to Italy. Of the 535 cases, 499 (EUR 5.03 billion) concern expenditure-side EU-funds fraud and 28 (EUR 271.5 million) concern revenue fraud.

On the administrative side, the Tax Antifraud Directorate made 820 criminal referrals in 2025 (up from 334 in 2024).

Duration. Reliable end-to-end figures are not published. In practice, a white-collar case will typically spend one to three/four years in the investigation phase, several months in the preliminary chamber, and three to five/six years in first instance and appeal.

Five trends stand out.

First, limitation has dominated everything. Constitutional Court Decision no. 297/2018, Constitutional Court Decision no. 358/2022 and High Court of Justice Decision no. 67/2022 removed any ground for interrupting the limitation period between June 2018 and May 2022 and were applied retroactively as the more favourable criminal law. The CJEU’s Lin (2023) and Lin II (16 July 2026) judgments have begun to reverse this for serious EU-budget fraud.

Second, the EPPO has displaced DNA as the principal venue for large-value work. The number of DNA indictments fell slightly while EPPO Romania built a caseload of 535 active investigations.

Third, EU funds are the dominant sectoral exposure. Ninety-three per cent of EPPO Romania’s active cases are expenditure fraud, concentrated in regional development and agriculture.

Fourth, tax enforcement has been digitalised and re-criminalised.

Fifth, cybercrime and online investment fraud are fast-growing categories; crypto-asset cases have arrived too.

CJEU, Case C-280/25 Lin II, 16 July 2026, as detailed under Q16.

High Court of Justice Decision no. 430/2025 concerns the mandatory tax expert report to be prepared during the investigation stage. The Court decided that the absence of the expert report renders the indictment irregular, sending cases back to prosecutors. In response, 118 prosecutors from DNA, DIICOT, the EPPO and the general prosecution offices petitioned the Government and the President for an urgent amendment, arguing that there is a risk of retroactive invalidation and that the requirement causes cases to become time-barred.

EU anti-corruption directive. Directive (EU) 2026/1021 on combating corruption entered into force on 31 May 2026, replacing Framework Decision 2003/568/JHA. It harmonises active and passive bribery in both the public and private sectors, misappropriation, trading in influence, abuse of functions, obstruction of justice, enrichment from corruption offences and concealment. Transposition is due within 24 months (June 1, 2028), extended to 36 months for the provisions on national anti-corruption strategies and corruption risk assessments.

AML package. Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 applies from 10 July 2027 and Directive (EU) 2024/1640 (AMLD6) must be transposed by the same date.

Tax evasion. The mandatory expertise requirement and the High Court decision applying it are the subject of an urgent amendment request from 118 prosecutors (please see Q26).

Further legislative or High Court clarification of the limitation rules remains likely after Lin II.

Legal certainty is a significant issue. It affects serious matters such as tax evasion, abuse of office and interruption of the statute of limitation.

No negotiated corporate resolution and no compliance incentive. There is no DPA or NPA regime, no compliance defence, no declination policy and no published guidance on cooperation credit.

Capacity and specialisation. There are no specialised financial crime courts. Official data for 2025 record 964 cases per judge at tribunal level and 1,479 at first-instance courts, with tribunal staffing at 72.28%. There are tribunals that record even 1,500 – 1,900 cases/judge. Complex financial cases are tried by generalist criminal judges carrying those caseloads.