Oana Stratula

Oana has joined S&A as a Partner in 2013 and since she has constantly boosted Firm’s Client and Deals portfolio, as well as Firm’s traditional Practice Areas, by developing and currently leading a unique, niche, Practice Area – EU Funds, with hugely diverse problematics, of which an important role is played by the litigation cases involving EU Funds. Her practice in this area encompass a very rich range of situations, involving beneficiaries of funds throughout Romania, under various financing and structural programs, with cases involving EU funds of over 100 million Euro.

Oana has also maintained a very strong and direct involvement in the Tax Practice Area, while being also active in the Procurement Practice, especially due to its interrelation with some of the EU Funds legal issues. She is also Firm’s main contact in what concerns the IP Practice, where Oana has extensive experience.

Oana’s Clients are mainly from Agribusiness, Real Estate & Construction, Food& Drink, Retail and Energy industry Clients.

• Represented a number of over fifty distinct EU Funds beneficiaries of various structural and financial programs (FEADR/PNDR, POR, POSCCE, POSDRU) in over two hundred litigation cases involving alleged breaches of financing contracts concluded with management authorities (involving eligibility and selection criteria, beneficiaries’ statuses as SMEs, artificial condition creation, unjustified advantages, etc).        
• Represented a major agribusiness player in a litigation case generated by the rejection of its 2 million Euro financing request by the relevant Management Authority within the Ministry of Agriculture, for an alleged lack of meeting all the eligibility conditions.
• Represented a number of twenty “micro-entities” in litigation cases generated by their re-classification as SMEs, as a result of management authorities’ erroneous interpretation of the legal criteria regarding the classification of such entities.
• Represented a leading Romanian real estate developer in a litigation case related to the illegal termination of a major residential project sale purchase agreement (involving around four thousand apartment flats for the inhabitants of an important Romanian city) concluded between the Client as buyer and a County Local Council as seller, including a series of inter-related patrimonial and financial claims of both the seller and the buyer.
• Represented a paints and varnishes regional distributor in a litigation case against the Romanian Competition Council, for the annulment of a fine imposed to the Client as a result of retaining an alleged vertical anti-competition understanding between the Client and the paints and varnishes manufacturer, referring to the re-sale prices.
• Represented one of the biggest local players on the FMCG market in a litigation case involving an interdiction to produce, trade, transport and advertise an energy drink brand, due to an alleged breach of another similar brand.
• Represented an important state-owned company in a litigation case related to the cancellation of an invention certificate referring to an essential installation for processing uranium ore and for purifying uranium concentrates.