
Article 1 
The following measures subject to this Decision unlawfully put into effect by Romania in breach of Article 108(3) TFEU, together and separately, constitute State aid:

((a)) the non-enforcement and further accumulation of debts between September 2012 and January 2013;
((b)) support to the operations of Oltchim in the form of continued unpaid supplies and further accumulation of debt since September 2012 by CET Govora without appropriate measures to protect its claims in the amount to be determined together with Romania during the recovery phase;
((c)) the debt cancellation under the Reorganisation Plan by AAAS, the National Water Administration, Salrom and Electrica SA for an aggregate amount, together with Article 1 (a), of RON 1 516 598 405.
Article 2 
The following measures subject to this Decision do not constitute State aid within the meaning of Article 107(1) TFEU:

((a)) Support by Salrom to the operations of Oltchim in the form of continued supplies since September 2012;
((b)) The 2015 debt cancellation under the Reorganisation Plan by CET Govora.
Article 3 
The State aid referred to in Article 1(a) and (c), amounting to a total of RON 1 516 598 405 million, as well as the State aid referred to in Article 1 (b), unlawfully granted by Romania, in breach of Article 108(3) TFEU, in favour of Oltchim, is incompatible with the internal market.
Article 4 

(1) Romania shall recover the aid referred to in Article 1 from the beneficiary.
(2) The sums to be recovered shall bear interest from the date on which they were put at the disposal of the beneficiary until their actual recovery.
(3) The interest shall be calculated on a compound basis in accordance with Chapter V of Commission Regulation (EC) No 794/2004.
Article 5 

(1) Recovery of the aid referred to in Article 1 shall be immediate and effective.
(2) Romania shall ensure that this decision is implemented within six months following the date of notification of this Decision.
Article 6 

(1) Within five months following notification of this Decision, Romania shall submit the following information to the Commission:
(a) the total amount (principal and recovery interests) to be recovered from the beneficiary;
(b) a detailed description of the measures already taken and planned to comply with this Decision;
(c) documents demonstrating that the beneficiary has been ordered to repay the aid.
(2) Romania shall keep the Commission informed of the progress of the national measures taken to implement this Decision until recovery of the aid referred to in Article 1 has been completed. It shall immediately submit, on simple request by the Commission, information on the measures already taken and planned to comply with this Decision. It shall also provide detailed information concerning the amounts of aid and recovery interest already recovered from the beneficiary.
Article 7 

(1) This Decision is addressed to Romania.
(2) The Commission may publish the amounts of aid and recovery interest recovered in application of this decision, without prejudice to Article 30 of Regulation (EU) 2015/1589.
Done at Brussels, 17 December 2018.
For the Commission
Margrethe VESTAGER
Member of the Commission
TECHNICAL ANNEX
1.  (1) The Commission carefully reviewed the different reports, data and studies available regarding Oltchim that a prudent market economy creditor — in the situation of AAAS, Electrica, Salrom, CET Govora and respectively the National Water Administration — would have reasonably taken into account to assess the merits of the reorganisation plan proposed to the creditors on 9 March 2015 and of the alternative path of triggering Oltchim's bankruptcy.
 (2) Based on those ex-ante data, the Commission established a central, reference scenario that a market economy creditor would have regarded as the most likely for each of the Reorganisation plan and of the liquidation procedure.
 (3) The Commission then analysed the robustness of the results obtained in that central scenario by assessing the proceeds obtained by the creditors in a pessimistic and in an optimistic scenario.
 1.1.  (4) In its report finalised on 30 April 2013, Winterhill performed an assessment of Oltchim's assets in a in-situ scenario corresponding to the situation where a buyer would purchase Oltchim's numerous assets in one bulk.
 (5) That value was used to establish the starting sale price of Oltchim SPV at EUR 306 million in the Reorganisation plan (see the Opening Decision, point (47).
 (6) Oltchim SA's in-situ value has been computed by Winterhill by using a net replacement cost methodology. Such a methodology is an acceptable proxy of the liquidation value of a company that would be bought in one bulk by a purchaser: as underlined by Winterhill in its 2013 report, such a value is indeed representative of both the cost of acquiring lands, equipments and machineries, setting up the associated buildings and paying for their installation costs, as well as of the depreciation induced by time for each of the assets purchased.
 (7) In the opposite, contrary to what was foreseen in the Reorganisation plan, the in-situ value was not representative of the market price related to the sale of Oltchim SA as a going concern through Oltchim SPV: a purchaser of Oltchim SPV's shares would have strongly preferred relying on the expected revenues and profit it could get from its investment in Oltchim SPV taken as a whole company (with for instance the obligations stemming from the transfer of employees' contracts from Oltchim SA) rather than on a net replacement cost of Oltchim SA's assets that ignores the liabilities attached to the SPV's take-over and tends to disregard the level of profitability of the business that can be conducted thanks to the assets for sale.
 (8) Therefore, consistently with the very approach taken by Raiffesen in 2009 (Raiffesen advisory report performed, p. 71), the enterprise value of Oltchim SPV can be computed through an enterprise valuation method relying on EBITDA multiples: taking into account the availability of detailed EBITDA forecasts at the time of the vote in the Reorganisation Plan prepared by the Court-appointed administrators, the methodology of EBITDA multiples is indeed an appropriate way to determine the enterprise value of Oltchim SPV, which is equivalent to the value of Oltchim SPV's shares considering the absence of financial debt.
 1.1.1.  (9) Winterhill (to which R/BDO refer to in their Reorganisation report) computed an ex-situ value corresponding to Oltchim SA's liquidation value in case its assets would have been sold individually, by applying notably standardised ratios on the in-situ value of most of the items forming Oltchim SA's. For instance, in order to compute the ex-situ value of the equipment and installations (estimated at EUR 99,1 million), Winterhill divided by two the in-situ estimate of EUR 198,2 relating to Oltchim's equipment and installations (which represents a significant part of the total in-situ value of Oltchim's assets estimated at EUR 297 million).
 (10) This supports the view that there was a continuum of intermediary possibilities between the liquidation of Oltchim's assets in one bulk or individually, as further strengthened by R/BDO's submission (point (100): ‘creditors could choose between a reorganisation […] and the bankruptcy’; for the latter they refer to two possible types of sales: ‘in situ, ex situ’. An ex-situ sale is representative of a pessimistic scenario where no assets would be bought as a functional group. An in-situ sale is representative of an optimistic situation where a single purchaser would buy all the asset one bulk. A central scenario would rely on the likely, average scenario where around half of the asset's value would be sold as a functional group while the remainder would only be sold at scrap value. This is the reason why it is appropriate to take the average between Winterhill's ex-situ and in-situ value to design the central liquidation value that an MEO could have expected, whereas the Wintehill's ex-situ value would represent the pessimistic outcome of the liquidation procedure and Winterhill's in-situ value the optimistic outcome of the liquidation procedure.
 (11) Furthermore, the liquidation was reasonably expected to be finalised within 18 months, based on R/BDO's submission in the Reorganisation plan (page 110).
 1.1.2.  (12) Regarding the reorganisation plan, the ‘scenario A’ of the Reorganisation plan foresaw the sale of Oltchim SPV to a purchaser interested in running the assets with the oxo-alcohols plant restarted and no additional, external funding needed. Such a scenario was representative of a reference view of Oltchim's SPV potential sale prospect.
 (13) In this scenario, the Court-appointed administrators assumed that the sale of Oltchim SPV would occur within a 36-month period. Therefore, in average, one may consider that a central view was to be conducted within 18 months.
 (14) A market economy creditor would have valued Oltchim SPV' sale price associated with that scenario, in accordance with the EBITDA multiple methodology described in recital 8, by multiplying the average of EBITDA forecasts over the 3-year period computed by R/BDO in the Reorganisation plan with the 5,0× multiple for commodity chemical producers advised by Raiffesen in its 2009 report. Contrary to the Romanian authorities' assumption in their submission dated on 16 May 2018 (section E, chapter II points 13-14), a MEO had no reason to assume higher EBITDA forecasts that the ones proposed by R/BDO in the ‘scenario B’ of their plan. Nor would a MEO had considered Raiffesen's estimate as flawed and considered alternative EBITDA multiples such as the one proposed by the Romanian authorities that are partly based on ex-post data not available at the time of the creditors' vote.
 (15) In a pessimistic scenario, one might consider that the potential purchasers of Oltchim SPV would have tried to rely on Oltchim SA's historical financial performance to set the price for their offers. Oltchim SA's 10-year historical EBITDA average amounted to minus EUR 7,4 million. However such a distressed performance is the mere result from Oltchim's difficulties notably from 2012; a MEO would thus have stressed the EBITDA assumed by R/BDO in the reference scenario by applying for instance a 50 % discount on the average of 3-year EBITDA forecasts by BDO in the reference scenario (i.e. EUR 3,4 million). The 5,0× EBITDA multiple was then also appropriate to establish the price for Oltchim SPV's shares in this pessimistic scenario.
 (16) In a pessimistic scenario, it made sense to assume that the maximum period of 36 months would be needed in order to achieve the sale of Oltchim SPV.
 (17) In view of comparing the proceeds from a liquidation procedure lasting 18 months and from a Reorganisation plan in the pessimistic scenario lasting 36 months, a discount factor based on the sectoral WACC is to be applied, for this difference of 18 months, to the proceeds and costs associated with the sale of Oltchim SPV.
 (18) A market economy creditor would have also considered as an optimistic scenario the ‘scenario B’ of the Reorganisation plan, that assumed Oltchim's business would be enhanced by its purchaser through a restart of the phthalic Anhydride-DOF plant with the use of external financing sources. On the contrary, a MEO would not have considered as realistic to assume an extended restart of the Bradu operations (including PVC/VCM and Petrochemical plant) as proposed by the Romanian authorities in their submission dated on 16 May 2018 (section E, chapter II point (19): a MEO had no reason to assume higher EBITDA forecasts that the ones proposed by R/BDO in that in the ‘scenario B’ of their plan.
 (19) A restrained period of 18 month (as in the liquidation scenario) was assumed: a shorter period would have proven to be too challenging for Oltchim to get the external financing needed so as to trigger the preliminary restart of the phthalic anhydride–DOF plant. The implementation of that upside was indeed a pre-requisite to secure the higher price attached to the optimistic scenario ‘B’ from a purchaser of Oltchim SPV.
 (20) Regarding the EBITDA multiple, an optimistic scenario may have averaged the 5,0× multiple proposed by Raiffesen with higher ones from other sources such as the 8,46× multiple stated in the specialised database from the Stern School of Business, for the group of diversified chemical companies for which Oltchim is mentioned to belong to (hence, 6,73×).

2.  (21) In both procedures, UNPIR costs of 2 % of the proceeds were assumed to be deducted, in accordance with R/BDO's statement in the Reorganisation plan's report (page 96). 4 % of administrator fees were also deducted from the proceeds based on Romania's submission dated 16 May 2018. Also, EUR 12 million of security costs (calculated based on R/BDO's submission on a pro rata basis for the 18 months of expected liquidation duration) — necessary to the preservation of the assets — were also allocated between secured and unencumbered assets based on Articles 121 and 123 of the insolvency law concerning the liquidation procedure.
 (22) The amount of current (post-insolvency) debt computed by R/BDO was withdrawn from the liquidation proceeds in all three scenarios.
 (23) The average amount of current debt (including the forecast of aggregate amount of debt related to post-insolvency salaries at the time of the sale of Oltchim SPV) over the 3-year reorganisation plan computed by R/BDO were assumed for both central (scenario A) and optimistic (scenario B) scenarios. To take into account the consequences of an increase in a current debt should the reorganisation plan result in a continuation of Oltchim's poor financial performance, the amount of current debt estimated by R/BDO in the scenario A at the end of the 1st year was retained as the amount of current debt to be repaid in the pessimistic scenario related to the Reorganisation plan.
 (24) Similarly, the average tax computed for each possible year of sale of Oltchim SPV over the 3-year period by R/BDO for the scenario A and B have been retained respectively for the reference and optimistic scenario of the Reorganisation plan (see table infra.), in consistence with Romania's submissions.
 (25) According to R/BDO, Oltchim's restart in case of a liquidation involving assets being sold in-situ would have implied EUR 2,5 million of start-up costs; therefore those costs have been deducted from the price offered by a potential purchaser in case of liquidation in-situ. 50 % of them have been modelled in the reference scenario as only half of the assets' value is assumed to be sold as a functional group and to remain operated as a plant, thus needed to be restarted, while the remainder is assumed to be sold at scrap value.
 (26) The environmental liabilities would have been neutralised by a market economy creditor when comparing the proceeds to expect from a liquidation procedure and those from the proposed Reorganisation plan, as supported by the reasoning detailed in recital 269 in the body of this decision.
 (27) The decommissioning of the mercury electrolysis plant and soil reclamation (EUR 26,6 million) — as well as the upgrade of plants both needed according to R/BDO in case of liquidation (EUR 24,6 million) and ‘gradually due if Oltchim is maintained operational’ — have been considered as neutral in the comparison between the liquidation scenario and the Reorganisation plan. Such an approach is consistent to the approach applied to environmental liabilities (see recital 26) in the following: those exceptional costs should indeed have been taken into account, one the one hand, by Oltchim SA's creditors in the liquidation scenario, and on the other hand, by a potential purchaser when putting a bid for Oltchim SPV. The Romanian authorities did not disagree with the fact that bidders would have taken into account those costs as equal in both liquidation and reorganisation' scenarios in case of purchase of these facilities with a view to operate them in point 10 of their submission dated on 16 May 2018; it is worth noting that this is an assumption that positively impacts the proceeds from the Plan by comparison to the ones from liquidation as in the pessimistic and reference liquidation scenarios, those upgrade costs would not have been necessary in full.
 (28) Lastly, the liquidation procedure would have required Oltchim SA to bear compensatory payments due to remaining employees in March 2015 dismissed in the liquidation scenario. In the reference and pessimistic scenario, those payments are estimated on the basis of R/BDO's submission (EUR 24,6 million), while being assumed equal to EUR 9,6 million on the basis of Raiffesen estimate in the optimistic scenario.
 (29) In the reorganisation scenario, EUR 1,5 million of fees related to asset transfers have been taken into account based on R/BDO's report supporting the Reorganisation plan.

3.  (30) Based on the previous assumptions, the aggregate gross and net proceeds in the liquidation procedure and Reorganisation plan are computed in the following sub-sections.
 (31) Taking into account the provisions of the insolvency law, notably its articles 121 and 123, the following cash waterfall has been modelled in the liquidation scenario: the proceeds from the secured assets (see item [A] in the following chart) are distributed as a priority to the secured creditors, after payment of the related procedural costs ([C]).
 (32) Proceeds from unencumbered assets are allocated at first for the payment of procedural/preservation costs as well as salaries.
 (33) 

Liquidation procedure
 Pessimistic scenarioEx-situ sale(million EUR) Central scenario(million EUR) Optimistic scenarioIn-situ sale(million EUR)
Gross proceeds (total) 140 216,9 293,7
 — from secured assets (A)
 108 171,1 234,2
 — from unencumbered assets (B)
 32 45,8 59,5
Procedural costs (UNPIR) and security/preservation/asset administration costs (15,9) (18,4) (20,9)
 — on secured assets (C)
 (13,2) (15,9) (18,5)
 — on unencumbered assets (D)
 (2,7) (2,5) (2,4)
Claims from employees (paid before current debt) (E) from unencumbered assets (2,1) (2,1) (2,1)
Current debt to be repaid, severance payments, start-up costs (F)   
 (75,2) (76,5) (62,4)
Current debt's coverage ratio by overall proceeds net of procedural, employee, secured debt repayment from secured assets and severance/start-up costs 29,1 % 44 % 114 %
Net proceeds:   
 — from secured assets (Ω = A - C)
 94,8 155,2 215,7
 — 
(Φ = B – D – E – F)
 (49,3) (37,1) (9,7)
Payment to creditors (other than employees)
Secured creditors (G), out of which: 94,8 155,2 195,8
 — AAAS's secured tranche
 1 1,7 2,1
 — Electrica's secured tranche
 21,4 35,7 44,2
 — Salrom
 1,7 2,7 3,47
Budgetary, out of which: 0 0 10,1 (= Ω + Φ – G)
 — AAAS
 0 0 9,5
 — Romanian Water Admin.
 0 0 0,7
Unsecured creditors under Article 96 of the insolvency law, out of which 0 0 0
CET Govora 0 0 0
National Water Administration 0 0 0
Other unsecured creditors 0 0 0
Salrom 0 0 0
 (34) 

Liquidation procedure (if no pre-deduction of current debts)
 Pessimistic scenarioEx-situ sale(million EUR) Central scenario(million EUR) Optimistic scenarioIn-situ sale(million EUR)
Gross proceeds (total) 140 216,9 293,7
 — from secured assets (A)
 108 171,1 234,2
 — from unencumbered assets (B)
 32 45,8 59,5
Procedural costs (UNPIR) and security/preservation/asset administration costs (15,9) (18,4) (20,9)
 — on secured assets (C)
 (13,2) (15,9) (18,5)
 — on unencumbered assets (D)
 (2,7) (2,5) (2,4)
Claims from employees (paid before current debt) (E) from unencumbered assets (2,1) (2,1) (2,1)
Severance payments, start-up costs (F) (24,9) (26,2) (12,1)
Net proceeds:   
 — from secured assets (Ω = A – C)
 94,8 155,2 215,7
 — 
(Φ = B – D – E – F)
 1,1 13,2 40,6
Payment to creditors (other than employees)
Secured creditors (G), out of which: 94,8 155,2 195,8
 — AAAS's secured tranche
 1 1,7 2,1
 — Electrica's secured tranche
 21,4 35,7 44,2
 — Salrom
 1,7 2,7 3,47
Budgetary, out of which: 1,1 13,2 60,5 (= Ω + Φ – G)
 — AAAS
 1,0 12,4 56,6
 — Romanian Water Admin.
 0,1 0,9 3,9
Unsecured creditors under Article 96 of the insolvency law, out of which 0 0 0
CET Govora 0 0 0
National Water Administration 0 0 0
Other unsecured creditors 0 0 0
Salrom 0 0 0
 (35) The proceeds from the sale of Oltchim SPV have been allocated in the following order in the Reorganisation plan: they are firstly used so as to honour the current debt repayment including pay the cost of asset transfers and procedural (UNPIR) costs, and tax on the profit made according to Article 102(1) of the insolvency law.
 (36) 

Reorganisation plan – EBITDA Multiples Methodology
 Optimistic scenario(Scenario B)(million EUR) Central scenario(Scenario A)(million EUR) Pessimstic scenario(million EUR)
Enterprise value, based on: 73,5 34,3 17,2
EBITDA 10,9 6,9 3,4
EBITDA multiple 6,7 5,0 5,0
Current debt (incl. post-insolvency debt due to employees), cost of asset transfers and UNPIR costs (72,5) (68,5) (72,2)
Coverage ratio of current debt from proceeds nets of UNPIR costs, asset transfer fees and taxes 102 % 48 % 22 %
Tax on incomes obtained (7,8) (7,4) (3,7)
Net proceeds 0 0 0
Payment to creditors
Employees 0 0 0
Secured creditors, out of which: 0 0 0
 — AAAS's secured tranche
 0 0 0
 — Electrica's secured tranche
 0 0 0
 — Salrom
 0 0 0
Budgetary, out of which: 0 0 0
 — AAAS
 0 0 0
 — National Water Admin.
 0 0 0
Unsecured creditors under Article 96 of the insolvency law, out of which 0 0 0
CET Govora 0 0 0
Other unsecured creditors 0 0 0
Salrom 0 0 0

 (37) A MEO would have been willing to double check those results by relying on the Dividend Discount Model (hereafter, ‘DDM’), another valuation tool frequently used by private investors. The share price of Oltchim SPV could be assessed by looking at the expected dividend cash flow from the point of view of an investor.
 (38) 
EV=∑i=1∞Profit1×Dividend distribution Rate×1+gi1+WACCi

Where:


 Profit1 can be calculated as the profit (net income) that can be reasonably expected after Oltchim SPV's operations restructuring has been completed;
 Dividend distribution rate is the share of profits that is distributed to shareholders;
 g is the growth rate applicable for diversified chemical industry players at that time;
 WACC is the relevant sectoral weighted average cost of capital.
 (39) 

((a)) In a reference scenario, Profit1 can realistically be assumed as equal to the average profit computed by R/BDO in their Reorganisation report over the 3-year period in scenario A (EUR 5,7 million) within which Oltchim SPV was expected to be sold.
((b)) In a pessimistic scenario, Profit1 can realistically be assumed as equal to half of the profit expected in the reference scenario (EUR 2,85 million).
((c)) In an optimistic scenario, Profit1 can realistically be assumed as equal to the average profit computed by R/BDO in their Reorganisation report over the 3-year period within which Oltchim SPV was expected to be sold in scenario B (EUR 7,0 million).
 (40) In all three scenarios, the growth rate g has been assumed to be equal to the 4,0 % (in value terms), the distribution rate to 46,56 % and the WACC (see footnote 162) equal to 11,58 %. The distribution rat assumed has been is relatively optimistic for all scenarios considering the high investment needs that Oltchim was requiring at that time.
 (41) 
EV=Profit1×Dividend distribution Rate×1+gWACC−g=6,39×Profit1
 (42) 

Reorganisation plan – Dividend Discount Model
 Optimistic scenario(Scenario B)(million EUR) Central scenario(Scenario A)(million EUR) Pessimstic scenario(million EUR)
Enterprise value, based on DDM: 44,7 36,4 18,2
Current debt (incl. post-insolvency debt due to employees), cost of asset transfers and UNPIR costs (72,5) (68,5) (72,2)
Tax on incomes obtained (7,8) (7,4) (7,0)
Net proceeds 0 0 0
Payment to creditors
Employees 0 0 0
Secured creditors, out of which: 0 0 0
 — AAAS's secured tranche
 0 0 0
 — Electrica's secured tranche
 0 0 0
 — Salrom
 0 0 0
Budgetary, out of which: 0 0 0
 — AAAS
 0 0 0
 — Romanian Water Admin.
 0 0 0
Unsecured creditors under Article 96 of the insolvency law, out of which 0 0 0
CET Govora 0 0 0
National Water Administration 0 0 0
Other unsecured creditors 0 0 0
Salrom 0 0 0
 (43) This assessment based on the DDM confirms that in the Reorganisation scenario, a MEO would have considered that there was no residual amount available allowing any recovery from the sale of Oltchim SPV, would it have happened, as only current debt holders recover part of their claims through proceeds from the sale of Oltchim SPV.

4.  (44) In conclusion, based on the above-mentioned calculations, secured creditors achieve in all three scenario related to the liquidation procedure positive recoveries between EUR 94,8 and 195,8 million, while in the reorganisation plan's proceeds, no surplus is available as proceeds are not enough to pay for the full amount of current debt and procedural costs, based on both EBITDA multiples and Dividend discount methodologies. Therefore, secured creditors acting as market economy creditors would have preferred the liquidation procedure from the perspective of their secured claim on a standalone basis.
 (45) This conclusion is corroborated by the following sensitivity analysis: even with an optimistic EBITDA multiple of 6,7× (see recital 20), a minimum break-even EBITDA of circa EUR 32,5 million (i.e. around three times the EBITDA related to the optimistic scenario of the Reorganisation plan) would have been required so that Oltchim SPV's value reaches an amount (EUR 219 million) allowing secured creditors to get higher proceeds in the Reorganisation plan compared to the pessimistic scenario attached to the liquidation procedure (i.e. proceeds for secured creditors of EUR 94,8 million).
 (46) A market economy creditor would have noted that this breakeven EBITDA of EUR 32,5 million (ensuring proceeds from the Plan higher than from the liquidation) was unrealistic because it was far higher than the one from the above-mentioned optimistic scenario (EUR 10,9 million), built on the basis of an assessment of Oltchim business. Furthermore, the Court-appointed receiver's estimate of proceeds from the Plan amounting to EUR 295/306 million implied that a purchaser would have been ready to consider Oltchim able to reach an EBITDA even higher (circa EUR 44 million p.a. of EBITDA, on the basis of an optimistic EBITDA multiple of 6,7×) which was even more unrealistic.
 (47) Therefore, a secured creditor willing to maximise its proceeds would have preferred to trigger the liquidation procedure.
 (48) In two of the three scenarios, the proceeds of the liquidation procedure are insufficient to repay, even partly, any claim due to the budgetary creditors. However EUR 10 million are recovered by budgetary creditors in the optimistic scenario of the liquidation procedure. By contrast, none of the three scenarios of the reorganisation plan results in distributions to budgetary creditors, and this, in addition to the substantial risk of failure of sale of Oltchim SPV based on past privatisation failure and of increase of the post-insolvency current debts (see recital 52).
 (49) Furthermore, even in the case of very low proceeds illustrated by the pessimistic and reference scenario in the liquidation procedure, budgetary creditors come before pre-insolvency debt from essential suppliers under Article 96 of the insolvency law in the liquidation procedure, while they were to be paid after the latter in the Reorganisation plan.
 (50) Therefore budgetary creditors acting as market economy creditors would have favoured the liquidation procedure from the perspective of their budgetary claim on a standalone basis.
 (51) Unsecured commercial creditors, including essential suppliers, do not recover any of their claims recorded in these two categories neither in any of the scenarios related to the liquidation procedure, nor in any of the scenarios related to the reorganisation plan.
 (52) Even when comparing scenarios where expected proceeds were equal to zero in both liquidation and reorganisation, a MEO would have favoured the liquidation as the reorganisation to avoid the certain further accumulation of current debt in a context of the uncertain generation of sufficient new revenues in the Plan. Such a behaviour would have been consistent with DGFP Craiova's one during the creditors assembly in August 2016 who was mentioned its opposition to the prolongation of the reorganisation period at that time to avoid an increase in current debts, according to PCC submission, which proved that irrespective of the fact that DGFP Craiova belonged to both secured and budgetary creditors, the risk of deviation of the current debt during the Reorganisation period was assessed as real.
 (53) In addition, the administrative and legal costs incurred by the creditors to pursue the monitoring of their exposure in the reorganisation plan were to be higher than in the liquidation procedure, the duration of which was expected to be shorter.
 (54) Therefore unsecured creditors acting as market economy creditors would have favoured the liquidation procedure from the perspective of these claims on a standalone basis to avoid further accumulation of current debt.

5.  (55) As a conclusion of this market economy creditor test, notably based on recitals 47 and 50 of this Technical Annex, AAAS, holding secured and budgetary claims, should have favoured the liquidation (as did another creditor holding both secured and budgetary claims namely, DGFP Craiova) if it had acted as an MEO and thus granted an advantage to Oltchim under Measure 3 amounting to the agreed partial write-off of its claim (EUR 211 to EUR 216 million).
 (56) Based on recitals 47 and 54 of this Technical Annex, Electrica, holding both secured and unsecured creditor claims, should have favoured the liquidation if it had acted as an MEO and thus granted an advantage to Oltchim under Measure 3 amounting to the agreed partial write-off of its claim (EUR 110 to 112 million).
 (57) Based on recital 50 and 54 of this Technical Annex, the Romanian Water Administration holding only budgetary claims and claims of unsecured creditor under Article 96 of the insolvency law should have favoured the liquidation if it had acted as an MEO and thus granted an advantage to Oltchim under Measure 3 amounting to the agreed partial write-off of its claim (EUR 2 million).
 (58) Furthermore, the above-mentioned considerations tend to indicate that Salrom should have also favoured the liquidation in order to maximise their proceeds. This is also the case for CET Govora, strictly based on those considerations.
 (59) As far as CET Govora and Salrom are concerned, in addition to their unsecured claims, they were also exposed to Oltchim as post-insolvency, current debt holders. So they may also have considered their potential recovery via their claims stemming from the current debt. The calculations (see above-mentioned tables) show that the coverage ratios of the current debt were higher in average in the liquidation scenario (71 %) compared to the Reorganisation plan (57 %).
 (60) Regarding Salrom, based on recitals 54 and 59 of this Technical Annex, the conclusion of this MEO test is that it should have favoured the liquidation if it had acted as an MEO and thus provided Oltchim with an economic advantage amounting to the agreed write-off of its claim (EUR 4 million).
 (61) As far as CET Govora is concerned, the specific constraints of this creditor need to be taken into account: a MEO acting in the situation of CET Govora would have considered the absence of proceeds in both liquidation and Reorganisation plan; it would have balanced the risk of increasing its exposure on Oltchim SA in the Reorganisation plan with the very special circumstances at stake for its own survival due to its large interdependence with Oltchim (larger than Salrom's one). Therefore that MEO may have favoured the Reorganisation plan.
 (62) In view of the latter, the conclusion of this MEO test is that CET Govora's behaviour was compliant with the market economy creditor principle regarding its vote in favour of the Plan.
