Judges Mihail Udroiu and Luminița Criștiu Ninu evaluated the Nordis case „holistically” and explained why the protagonists of this case should be investigated in freedom. The two judges lifted the judicial control on suspects who did not contest the measure, and Vicol requested judicial control and was released without any restrictions.
The decision was made by a panel with a divergence, with 2 votes in favor and 3 against, with Judge Elena Barbu supporting the house arrest for the Vicol/Barbu spouses.
From the reasoning of Udroiu and Criștiu, it appears that former MP Laura Vicol admitted that „she also gave her mother various sums of money, and that she is a spendthrift, meaning she bought expensive accessories and clothing items, something she had done even before her marriage.”
They Received More Than They Asked The document also shows that Laura Vicol’s lawyers at the Supreme Court requested the rejection of preventive detention and to investigate her under judicial control, a request that the two judges did not follow, as Vicol was left in freedom without any restriction, returning to her legal practice.
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Udroiu and Criștiu Ninu also decided to lift the judicial control in the case of two suspects who did not contest the measure: Cristian Matei Andrei and Gabriela Vasile.
Additionally, the two judges recommended in their reasoning that the future panel of judges, which will examine the case on its merits, exclude an expert report from DIICOT from the file. Udroiu and Criștiu Ninu expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that investigators had only questioned 20% of the victims, which they found insufficient to demonstrate the fraud in the case. The renting of private aircraft and the purchase of luxury cars worth millions of euros were, in the view of the two judges, merely non-deductible expenses for the company.
They Did Not Provide the Exact Date of the Establishment of the Criminal Group The two judges also criticized DIICOT for not specifying the exact date when the criminal group was formed in the referral for preventive arrest, and they reproached them for only stating that it was established between 2018 and 2025.
Udroiu and Criștiu further argued that false advertising cannot be considered a typical fraud act, and imposing abusive contract clauses in annexes to sales promises allowed for their cancellation.
The panel also concluded that „the image of a successful businessman can have a significant impact on how they are perceived in society. This is due to psychological phenomena such as the halo effect, a theory developed by Daniel Kahneman.”
„When we see someone presented as a ‘successful businessman,’ we are prone to generalize this positive trait and extend it to other aspects of their personality or abilities.”
Furthermore, the two magistrates ignored the hundreds of victims defrauded by the Nordis group, asserting that the DIICOT prosecutor was a victim of this type of thinking. „The erroneous evaluation made by the prosecutor can be qualified, from the perspective of Daniel Kahneman’s theory, as one of the examples of fast, intuitive, and emotional thinking, responsible for decisions made hastily, based on impressions and associations.”
Reckless Spending DIICOT shows in the preventive arrest proposal for the „Nordis” case that Nordis Travel S.R.L. made expenses for purchasing flights (commercial and private) worth 1,511,208 euros and 805,984 lei, including private flights totaling 857,796 euros and 691,948 lei. These expenses are said to have been paid from Nordis Management funds, constituted from the clients’ money. „It is also notable that luxury cars (Ferrari, Bentley, Rolls-Royce) were purchased over approximately 4 years, with a total cost of around 5 million euros (19,336,134 lei and 965,391 euros),” according to DIICOT’s referral.
Laura Vicol and Vladimir Ciorbă are accused of embezzling tens of millions of euros from companies in the Nordis group and spending the money on vacations, private jet travel, luxury purchases, and cars. The withdrawn sums came from clients defrauded by the Nordis group.
On February 14, the Supreme Court decided that former PSD MP Laura Vicol should be released from detention, as should her husband, Vladimir Ciorbă, who was placed under judicial control. Judge Elena Barbu had a separate opinion, advocating for the house arrest of the Vicol-Ciorbă couple.
Who Are the Judges Who Ruled Former head of the Teleorman Tribunal, Criștiu Ninu, was proposed by Lia Savonea in 2019 for the position of president of the Bucharest Court of Appeal. She was promoted to the Supreme Court in December 2022. Her husband is a senior advisor at the Teleorman County Council.
Mihail Udroiu was an advisor to former DIICOT chief Alina Bica, who was later sentenced to 4 years in prison for aiding the perpetrator.
Udroiu appeared at one point in DNA documents. Investigators claimed that Udroiu helped businessman Bogdan Buzăianu obtain a document from DIICOT. In return, Buzăianu allegedly promised to offer Udroiu a trip to Dubai. The judge, alongside his panel colleague Lia Savonea, decided to return the Revolution case file to the Prosecutor’s Office, a case in which former President Ion Iliescu was being judged.
At the Bucharest Court of Appeal, the decision to arrest the Vicol-Ciorbă couple was made by Judge Irina Raluca Manu on February 5. According to Presshub sources, she was threatened with a referral to the Judicial Inspection for not sending the file to the Supreme Court for appeal on Friday, February 7.
In regard to this aspect, the Bucharest Court of Appeal stated that information regarding any pressure placed on Judge Manu by the head of the department is not of public interest.
There are 11 defendants in the Nordis case, of which five were placed in preventive detention, three are under house arrest, and three are under judicial control, following a decision by the Bucharest Court of Appeal. DIICOT prosecutors accuse the 11 of embezzlement after 1,700 clients were defrauded of nearly 70 million euros, money paid in advance for luxury apartments in the mountains and at the seaside.
