Single bid submitted in tender for selection of consortium to continue investigation in Savings Bank case in Moldova

Chisinau, 2 September /MOLDPRES/ - The National Bank of Moldova (BNM) has informed that only one bid was submitted in for the tender to select the consortium that would continue investigations in the case of the three banks under special administration: Banca de Economii (Savings Bank), Unibank and Banca Sociala (Social Bank). BNM invited four firms with international reputation - Ernst & Young, KPMG,  Kroll and PricewaterhouseCoopers - to participate in the tender.

The tender was announced on 10 August, and the deadline for submission of bids expired on 1 September. The consortium made up of the Kroll and Steptoe & Johnson LLP companies is the only who expressed readiness to conduct an investigation of irregularities and significant transactions involving the three problem banks. BNM will examine this offer and present the evaluation results at a meeting of the National Financial Stability Committee meeting on the days to come.

"The final aim of this investigation is to provide BNM a clear chronological picture on the persons who controlled the suspicious transactions, who held control over the banks, who benefited from the transactions investigated, to identify irregularities and significant losses in these banks as well as to develop and implement a strategy for asset recovery", the central bank said.

Based on the information already collected by BNM and the findings of the second phase of the investigation, the consortium of companies will be taking civil, criminal, intergovernmental insolvency (as appropriate) actions, in coordination with BNM, in Moldova and foreign jurisdictions to track, retain and recover the assets.

The Kroll Company conducted the first stage of the investigation earlier this year. Under the Kroll investigation, about 1 billion dollars was embezzled from the three banks through bad loans and other means, and the government issued two state guarantees totaling 14.8 billion lei to save the problem banks. According to BNM, this is the maximum possible cost for liquidating these banks; yet, the central bank expects it will be lower. The final date for the completion of all procedures, and respectively, withdrawing the licenses of the three banks, was set for 16 October 2015.

(Reporter V. Bercu, Editor A. Raileanu)