And it"s not exactly chump change - it"s ten million dollars.
In the story that follows, the impressive thing is not the amount of money that is lost in itself, but rather the idea behind the scam: take away the money of the state and then file for bankruptcy.
Everybody wins, aside from the taxpayers.
A lousy deal for the state, which was made eighteen years ago, in which we borrowed ten million dollars from the US government, to import cotton for our cotton mills, now has the Romanian state liable for compensatory damages until 2022.
In 1992, the Romanian government took out a commercial loan of ten billion dollars, from the American government, for the acquisition of fiber cotton from the US.
The agreement had very advantageous terms for Romania: the loan would be paid back in 30 years, with a grace period of six years (until 1998), with an annual interest rate of 3%.
After the signing of the agreement, the Romanian government held a call for bids following which it appointed five companies to import the cotton: "Românoexport SA", "Tricorom SA", "Textilcotton SA", "Impex Overseas Corp SRL" and "Tuvic Impex SRL".
Based on the mandate, the companies had the duty to import the fiber cotton from the USA and to deliver it to the Romanian cotton mills. At the same time, the companies in question pledged to reimburse the American loan, the principal and the interest, by October 15th of each year.
* How it all went to hell
Everything was hunky dory until 1998 - the year when the loan payments were supposed to begin.
"The cotton importers paid the interest on the contracted loans until 1998 included, and then, after the maturity of the first installments and then, with the first principal and loan interest payments coming due, they ceased payment claiming that the companies that they sold the cotton to did no
