A woman who owns shares in the commercial bank Mobiasbanca said she hasn’t been paid dividends that now came to 6 million lei during 15 years. In a news conference at IPN, Iulia Deleu said she became shareholder of the bank in 1996 and benefitted from dividends only during the first few years, owning 2% of the bank’s shares.

According to Iulia Deleu, when the contract was signed, the bank assumed the obligation to annually pay dividends, but this wasn’t done. The dividends stopped to be paid after the bank informed her that it signed agreements with the State Tax Inspectorate for benefiting from tax concessions on condition that dividends are not distributed to shareholders. But the Inspectorate actually didn’t impose such conditions and the bank misled the shareholders in the period.

In 2009, the shareholder sued the bank and asked to nullify the decisions concerning dividend distribution taken by the Annual Assemblies of Shareholders of Mobiasbanca. But the courts of law rejected her applications. “Despite the presented evidence and arguments, the local courts, intentionally misinterpreting the law, adopted illegal decisions. They groundlessly rejected my applications, dispossessing me thus of the shareholding in the bank,” stated Iulia Deleu.

The shareholder also said that this way the courts of law violated her rights to a fair trial and to property. Even if the law provides that joint stock companies can redeem the shares owned by minority shareholders, Mobiasbanca intentionally does not find legal reasons for doing so.

Iulia Deleu considers she was ‘robbed’ by the European banks residing in Moldova through the legal system and with the support of corrupt functionaries because the main shareholders of Mobiasbanca are Societe Generale, BRD Groupe Societe Generale and EBRD, which together own 95% of the bank’s shares. The shareholder calls on the international institutions and embassies working in Moldova to react to this case and help solve it.