OPEN LETTER

ASTRA S.A., Insurance-Reinsurance trading company, Romanian legal entity headquartered in Bucharest, 3 Nerva Traian, building M101, 10th floor, district 3, registered at the Bucharest Trade Registry Office under no. J40/305/1991, SRC: RO 330904, together with its employees, including members of the executive management Radu MUSTATEA, Chairman of the Board, Dacian – Ioan VINEREANU, Vice-president of the Board and Razvan IEREMIA, Board Member, hereby express this viewpoint regarding the media coverage of the company and its employees’ involvement in the „luxury car theft case”, on October 5th, 2011.

The car theft case concerns the investigation of several suspects who allegedly acquired luxury cars in leasing, which they subsequently sold in Middle East countries and declared them as stolen in order to cash in the insured amount.

To facilitate the best possible understanding of the need to submit this viewpoint to the public opinion, we illustrate below a timeline of the media coverage on this topic.

On the morning of October 5th, 2011, the head of the Car Theft Department from the General Directorate of the Bucharest Police publicly announced that „At the moment, we conduct several checks which also include leasing and insurance companies, with regard to the involvement of some of their employees in these frauds, the so-called damaged parties, in inverted comas. (....) The so-called damaged parties were selling the vehicles through the agency of intermediaries, as I told you, in countries from the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq, then they came to the Car Theft Department and notified that these vehicles had been stolen. In fact, they even had the car keys and papers on them”. An interpretable and interpreted official stand, given that in one context, the leasing and insurance companies are the damaged parties, “in inverted commas” (which is, in fact, correct, the first ones being the owners of the stolen vehicles and the latter being the companies that paid up the compensations), while in a different context, the „so-called damaged parties” are the users, who sold the luxury cars and declared them stolen.

Based on the statements made by the head of the Car Theft Department, as of 3:54 p.m., the news TV channels, without dully verifying the reason for which the Astra Asigurari management was invited to hearings, informed “Sources claim that the president of Astra Asigurari is expected at hearings for the car theft case”. After this announcement, reporters and anchors on all news TV channels announced that the employees of Astra Asigurari, including the company management, namely Radu MUSTATEA, chairman of the board, Dacian VINEREANU, vice-president of the board and Razvan IEREMIA, board member, were involved in the luxury car theft case.

Apart from the statements made by the head of the Car Theft Department from the General Directorate of the Bucharest Police during the first part of the day on October 5th 2011, containing no direct reference to a specific insurance company, we wonder what were the “sources” used by those journalists who indicated the involvement of Astra Asigurari management in this case, as long as, legally speaking, on-going criminal investigations are not to be disclosed? Therefore, we again wonder whether the intent was, in fact, to damage the image of Romania’s largest insurance company by delivering this information on media channels and by bringing its management to the police in front of TV cameras. We make this statement because the case covers investigations of actions regarding several cars, acquired from several leasing companies and also insured at several insurance companies. None of the other insurance companies were dragged into this media “scandal” but Astra Asigurari and its management.

Thus, regardless of the truth behind the facts covered by the media (truth that the criminal investigation bodies will surely reveal), we can draw two conclusions, beyond any doubt: the fact that the public opinion was presented the idea that insurance companies, Astra Asigurari included, colluded with the car thieves and the fact that in Romania, the damaged parties are in fact culprits. These are sad conclusions for a world where fundamental principles like presumption of innocence, truth and even, eventually, individual freedom, are apparently nothing but meaningless words.

It has to be clear that TV justice does not benefit criminal investigation bodies, the police or the prosecutor’s office, the public opinion, just like it does no help finding out the truth about the facts under criminal investigation.

Astra Asigurari is currently the leader of the Romanian insurance market (“Company of the Year 2010” – Nine O’Clock, “Grand Award – Company of the Year” – Insurance Market Awards Gala, “Insurer of the Year 2010” – Piata Financiara magazine) and misrepresenting facts about the company and its management’s involvement in this case may seriously harm the image and reputation of both the company and its management, in a highly sensitive sector such as the insurance market, where any negative information can have an extremely serious impact on the company’s operations and, not least, on the insured persons.

Consequently, we intend to use all legal instruments available to us to remedy the serious damage brought to the image of Astra Asigurari and its management by the erroneous “source” information about the involvement of ASTRA and its management in the “luxury car thefts” broadcast on all media channels.

We want to assure the competent state institutions and the customers insured by our company, that we are constantly at the disposal of the criminal investigation bodies for further inquiries and we are confident that the damage sustained by ASTRA will soon be recovered as a result of a fair investigation and an equally fair judgment.

Astra Asigurari - Press Office

For more information, please contact:

Gianina Ungureanu Iovanel

gianina.iovanel@astrasig.ro