One Tuesday morning, the bank rejects every payment. Suppliers cannot be paid, wages cannot go out, the cash line is frozen. A prosecutor's order has arrived at the registry: a precautionary seizure over the company's bank accounts, the flat, the two vans and the shareholdings, up to the amount of 4,300,000 lei. You have not been questioned, you have not seen the file, there is no court judgment, and yet the company has come to a halt. How you react in the first 3 days often decides whether the company survives until the end of the case.
Procedural measures affecting property, governed by Articles 249 to 256 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. They consist of freezing movable or immovable assets by imposing a seizure: the asset remains yours, but you can no longer sell it, mortgage it or, sometimes, use it.
Under Article 249(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the purpose is threefold: preventing the concealment, destruction, transfer or removal from the reach of the investigation of assets that may be subject to special or extended confiscation, securing enforcement of a fine or of court costs, or making good the damage caused by the offence. In tax evasion cases, the dominant ground is the third: securing the amount the state claims as the loss.
Two substantive points, clearly stated by the Constitutional Court in Decision No. 629/2015. First: the seizure is not a criminal penalty, it does not depend on how serious the conduct alleged against the person under investigation is, and it has no punitive character, only a preventive one. It does not mean you are guilty. Second: it is not necessary for the suspect to have taken any step to hide the assets. The measure may be ordered whenever a loss has occurred, which, in practice, turns it into a procedural reflex.
Article 11 of Law No. 241/2005 states, tersely: “where an offence under this law has been committed, taking precautionary measures is mandatory.” It is a mandatory rule: the prosecutor has, in principle, no discretion not to impose the seizure. Hence the reflex-like pattern found in almost every case.
This is where the distinction the defence should raise from the very first act comes in: the mandatory nature concerns the imposition of the measure, not its scope, duration, or the manner in which it is carried out. Article 11 does not suspend the Code's general limits.
Article 249(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure: measures to make good the damage are taken “up to the amount of the probable value of that damage”. A seizure that plainly exceeds the estimated loss is unlawful, however mandatory the measure may be in principle.
Article 249(8) of the Code of Criminal Procedure: assets belonging to a public authority or institution, and assets exempted by law, cannot be seized, a formal check that is quick and often skipped.
The requirement of proportionality, drawn from Article 53 of the Constitution and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the European Convention, together with the duty of periodic review under Article 250² of the Code of Criminal Procedure, remain fully applicable.
Practice confirms that the argument works. The Bucharest Court of Appeal held, in a final ruling in a tax evasion case, that precautionary measures taken in 2015 had lapsed by operation of law, even though imposing them had been mandatory, and dismissed as manifestly unfounded the prosecutor's application to reimpose them a few days later, in the absence of any new factor. For context, the offence of tax evasion (evaziune fiscală) under Article 9 is the one that triggers, in most cases, the application of Article 11.
During the criminal investigation, the prosecutor, of their own motion, by a reasoned order. In the pre-trial chamber (camera preliminară), the pre-trial chamber judge; during the trial, the court, of its own motion or at the prosecutor's request, by a reasoned ruling. The measure can also be taken at the civil party's request, and one taken of the authority's own motion can also benefit the civil party. The regime for the assets differs, however, depending on the purpose pursued, and this is exactly where most mistakes are made.
Only the assets of the suspect or defendant, Article 249(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Nothing else, regardless of who actually manages the assets.
The assets of the suspect or defendant, or of other persons who own or possess the assets to be confiscated, Article 249(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The only gateway into third parties' assets.
The assets of the suspect or defendant and of the party with civil liability, up to the probable value, Article 249(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The usual basis in tax evasion cases.
The practical consequence is essential: for making good the loss, the seizure can only reach the assets of the person under investigation and of the party with civil liability, typically, the company of which you are the director. It cannot reach, on this basis, the assets of an unrelated third party. Third parties' assets come into play only on the basis of confiscation, and only if those specific assets are actually to be confiscated. Who is ultimately liable for the company's figures, and in what capacity, is a separate discussion, covered in the analysis on the liability of the director and the party with civil liability.
The assets of a spouse and of third parties. The area with the most mistakes. The spouses' joint assets can be seized to the extent of the share belonging to the spouse under investigation; a seizure imposed indiscriminately over an entire asset, with no apportionment, can be challenged by the spouse not under investigation, who has the status of an interested person within the meaning of Article 250 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Likewise, a good-faith third party who has acquired a property registered in the land register has a right of their own to challenge the measure. A “precautionary” seizure extended over the assets of the wider family, found in the larger cases, is rarely supported by a correctly identified legal basis.
The effect is immediate and total: the bank freezes the balance and, as a rule, suspends credit lines. The seizure freezes the existing balance; the treatment of later receipts depends on the wording of the order and on the bank's practice, so it should be clarified in writing, at once.
It is notified to the tax authority and registered in the land register (Article 253 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). You do not lose ownership, but the property becomes unsellable and cannot be mortgaged, and the registration remains visible to any partner or bank.
They may be left in custody or physically seized, sealed and handed over to a custodian or to ANABI (the National Agency for the Management of Seized Assets), Article 252 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Seizure also affects the use of the asset, a separate ground for challenge where the asset is a means of production.
They are frozen by a notation in the trade registry, blocking any restructuring, transfer or contribution, including financing that would have allowed the loss to be paid.
WARNING: The time limit for challenging the measure is 3 days and cannot be extended. Article 250(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure expressly provides that a challenge does not suspend enforcement, the seizure remains in effect throughout. And Article 250(1) sets two alternative starting points for the time limit: from communication of the order, when you challenge the measure on the merits, or from its enforcement, when you challenge how it was carried out. The choice between the two is not optional, it depends on what you are actually objecting to, and getting the starting point wrong means the challenge is out of time. In these cases, the first 72 hours are worth more than the following six months.
A prosecutor's order or a judge's ruling? This determines the remedy, the time limit and the competent court.
A challenge within 3 days of communication of the order (on the merits) or of its enforcement (as to execution), to the judge for rights and liberties (judecătorul de drepturi și libertăți) of the court with jurisdiction to try the case on the merits. It is decided in chambers, with the parties summoned, by a reasoned and final ruling.
Article 250¹ of the Code of Criminal Procedure, “Challenging precautionary measures ordered during the trial”: a 48 hour time limit from the ruling or, as the case may be, from its communication, decided within 5 days, in a public hearing, the challenge not suspending enforcement.
For a measure taken by the pre-trial chamber judge or by the court, enforcement is challenged separately, within 3 days of the measure being put into effect, before the same judge or the same court.
The judge for rights and liberties does not rule on the merits of the accusation. What works: an unreasoned order, which must state the grounds both for the necessity of the measure and for the extent of the loss; exceeding the probable value of the damage; seizing exempted assets, or assets of persons who do not have the status required by Article 249(3) to (5); manifest disproportion.
A challenge and an application for release pursue different things and are not mutually exclusive. The first attacks lawfulness; the second saves the business. What happens next in the case, in the defence strategy in a tax evasion case.
Article 250² of the Code of Criminal Procedure, introduced by Law No. 6/2021 and in force from 28 February 2021, provides that, throughout the criminal proceedings, the prosecutor, the pre-trial chamber judge or the court “periodically reviews, but not later than 6 months during the criminal investigation, or one year during the trial”, whether the grounds that led to imposing or maintaining the measure still exist, and orders that it be maintained, narrowed, extended or lifted.
The legislature, however, failed to lay down a sanction for missing these deadlines, and practice has, as a result, been inconsistent. Some courts have held that the 6 month and 1 year time limits are substantive and peremptory, so that a failure to review causes the measures to lapse by operation of law; others have held that, in the absence of an express provision, lapsing by operation of law cannot apply by analogy with the regime for preventive measures.
The disagreement has not been resolved. Asked in 2022 to rule on the legal nature of these time limits, the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ÎCCJ) dismissed the referral as inadmissible by Decision No. 38/2022, published in Official Gazette No. 671 of 5 July 2022, holding that the nature of the time limit is an incidental question on which the outcome of the case on the merits does not depend. As a result, there is neither a binding preliminary ruling nor an appeal in the interest of the law fixing a single answer, and within the Public Ministry the majority view expressed at the practice meeting in April 2023 was that it is a mere recommendatory time limit, while the National Institute of Magistracy has argued for lapsing by operation of law.
For the defence, the conclusion remains practical: in older cases, check whether the measure has been reviewed. It is a free, formal argument that, before certain panels, can be decisive, although the outcome depends on the leanings of the panel seised of the case.
Partial release to keep the business running. The most important application, and the one least often made. What is requested is the release of a monthly allowance earmarked exclusively for wages, contributions, utilities and current tax liabilities. The argument: freezing the accounts entirely does not preserve the assets out of which the loss could be repaired, it destroys them, a business that has stopped produces nothing, and the state's claim becomes illusory. It is a proportionality argument, and the procedural basis is narrowing the measure under Article 250² of the Code of Criminal Procedure, together with Article 250 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Release for a specific purpose, to pay the loss. The contradiction is real: you cannot pay, from frozen accounts, the sum that would bring you non-punishment or a reduced sentence. The solution is an application to release the exact sum, transferred directly to the state budget. The prosecutor's interest coincides, here, with yours, the full mechanism is set out in the analysis on covering the loss under Article 10 of Law No. 241/2005.
Substituting the asset. Where the seizure falls on the equipment used for production or on the operating premises, you can propose replacing it with another asset of at least equal value that is not essential to the business. An honest point: the Code of Criminal Procedure does not provide for replacing a seizure with a bond or a bank guarantee, unlike in tax matters, and no settled body of case law allowing it has developed either. What can realistically be achieved is a narrowing of the measure, not a formal substitution.
A seizure and extended confiscation are not the same thing. The seizure is provisional and secures a claim. Extended confiscation (Article 112¹ of the Criminal Code) is a final safety measure, ordered by a judgment, which concerns assets acquired by a convicted person within 5 years before and, as the case may be, after committing the offence, if their value plainly exceeds lawfully obtained income and the court is satisfied that they derive from criminal activity. It therefore presupposes a conviction and its own standard of proof, and is not presumed simply from the existence of a seizure.
Duration. The measure has effect from the moment it is ordered until the case is finally resolved. In tax evasion cases, that realistically means between three and six years. This is exactly why periodic review and proportionality are not theoretical issues.
Criminal seizure versus tax garnishment. A common situation: the same accounts are targeted at the same time by the seizure ordered by the prosecutor and by the garnishment (poprire) imposed by ANAF (Romania's national tax administration) on the basis of the tax assessment decision (decizie de impunere) issued after the inspection, a path described at length in the analysis on the move from a tax inspection to a criminal case. These are separate procedures, with different legal bases, authorities and remedies: the criminal seizure is challenged before the judge for rights and liberties, the tax garnishment through an appeal against enforcement (contestație la executare) against the ANAF garnishment. The practical consequence: suspending enforcement of the tax assessment decision does not lift the criminal seizure, and the reverse is equally true. Whoever wins one and assumes the other is resolved too finds the blockage the moment the first payment is rejected. Both have to be challenged, each on its own path, including through challenging the tax assessment decision, which belongs to the tax side of the same case.
Yes. The mandatory nature under Article 11 of Law No. 241/2005 concerns the imposition of the measure, not the amount, the assets chosen or the manner of enforcement. A seizure of 4,000,000 lei for a probable loss of 900,000 lei is unlawful for exceeding the limit under Article 249(5) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, however mandatory the measure may be in principle. Likewise, a seizure over a third party's assets, imposed on the basis of making good the damage, has no legal basis.
Not automatically, but it can be requested. A reasoned application is made for narrowing the measure or for partial release, with a monthly cap and a precise purpose, documented with payrolls and outstanding liabilities. The success rate depends heavily on the quality of the documentation: a generic application is dismissed; one that shows, with figures, that the freeze is destroying the very source that would repair the loss has a real chance.
No. You have lost the challenge against the order, which is a serious loss, but the following remain open: an application to lift or narrow the measure, the periodic review under Article 250² of the Code of Criminal Procedure, challenging measures taken later in the pre-trial chamber and at trial, and objections of unlawfulness raised in the pre-trial chamber. The 3 day time limit is a trap, not a final verdict.
No. A seizure freezes; it does not transfer ownership. If the case is discontinued, you are acquitted, or the ground for non-punishment applies because the loss has been covered, the measure is lifted. Permanently losing an asset requires either confiscation, special or extended, ordered by a final judgment, or the enforced collection of damages set by the court. Until then, the presumption of innocence remains intact, even if the economic effects of the seizure do not reflect that at all.
Informative material, updated on 18 July 2026. It does not constitute legal or tax advice; individual situations must be assessed on their own facts. Persons under investigation are presumed innocent until a conviction becomes final.
If the matter involves a criminal complaint or an open file, the related analyses are grouped under economic criminal law. For how the defence is built, see tax evasion defence.
Time limits run from the date of communication. A first conversation clarifies what is being alleged, what you need to substantiate and how the defence is built, before an estimate becomes a tax assessment decision.