The Mandate Relationship in the Corporate Governance of Romanian State-Owned Enterprises

After two decades of uncertainties and legislative instability, following the anti-communist Revolution of December 1989, the reform of Romanian state-owned enterprises' management to a system of corporate governance was imperative. The Government Emergency Ordinance no. 109/2011, subsequently amended by the Law no. 111/2016, has modernized their management and administration system, ensuring greater transparency and increased control over the operations of public enterprises. At the base of these entities' relationship with their administrative and executive management structures there are mandate contracts, which impose specific obligations on the agents, as well as a system of accountability meant to ensure that the state is permanently informed on the operations of the enterprise, that the acts concluded on its behalf are correct and legal and that, should the public authority loose trust in the management, it could immediately hold them accountable, in order to recover the losses and put the activity of the enterprise on the right and lawful path again. In our study, we shall analyse the content and the juridical nature of this mandate relationship, with its national specificity, given by the incidental regulations from Romanian legislation.