Overview

On 17 July 2009 an important piece of new legislation was passed in Romania: the new Civil Code1. It aims to forge into one corpus (i) the principles set out in the old Civil Code and the Commercial Code (to the extent they reflect modern societal needs), (ii) various regulations that have been enacted in those fields throughout the past 140 years and (iii) additional new concepts (e.g. imported from continental statutes or the common law tradition).

The new Civil Code sets forth a series of changes to preexisting concepts that will most likely impact the way finance-banking transactions are shaped under Romanian law. It brings changes that may create the opportunity of new business for credit and financial institutions and change the structure of existing business. Among these changes is the concept of fiducia.