The Chisinau Court of Appeals passed the first sentence in the Laundromat case. More specifically, the Criminal Board upheld the first court’s sentence of September 2022 by which ex-judge Gheorghe Marchitan was found guilty of knowingly pronouncing a decision contrary to the law. However, the former judge was freed from criminal responsibility in connection with the statute of limitations, IPN reports.

According to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, the criminal case was initiated in September 2016 by the prosecutor general. In 2011, Gheorghe Markitan, serving as a judge, pronounced a judgement contrary to the law in a civil case. It goes to the request of a company based in the UK to collect the debt of US$200 million, jointly and severally, from another company of the UK and its guarantors – a natural person domiciled in the Republic of Moldova and two companies based in the Russian Federation.

The judge made a court order to collect the debt in the amount of US$200 million for the benefit of the creditor – the foreign/non-resident company based in the UK - despite the lack of valid legal documents attesting to the powers of attorney of the creditor’s representative. The judge also ignored the fact that the rest of the documents attached to the file were neither properly authenticated nor legalized. So, the defendant ignored the legal procedures when passing the sentence.

The court order issued by the defendant on March 11, 2011 in the civil case had considerable financial consequences (US$200 million), being transmitted to a bailiff who forcibly collected large amounts of money from bank accounts in the Russian Federation for the benefit of the “creditor”, harming the image of justice in the Republic of Moldova and trust in courts  both domestically and internationally.
 
In April, another judge involved in the Laundromat case was found guilty of knowingly passing a judgment contrary to the law. Although the statute of limitations expired in 2017, the Buiucani Court of Chisinau City fund the defendant guilty. He was also freed from criminal liability.