Dan Voiculescu

Early life

For his secondary studies, he went to the Emil Racoviţă High School. Starting in 1969, he studied at the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE) in Bucharest, obtaining a B.A. in 1974, and a Ph.D. in 1977. In 1991, he obtained a Ph.D. in economics from the unaccredited Pacific Western University (Hawaii), in Honolulu, Hawaii, and became a professor at ASE.

According to the autobiography published on the official website, he was born in a modest family, his father being a plumber and his mother a housewife. He grew up in the Bucharest neighborhood of Bariera Vergului, near the 23 August skating rink, where he practiced ice hockey. In 1969 he fulfilled the military service in a military unit in Focsani, obtaining the rank of reserve intendancy lieutenant.

Academic activities

Starting in 1996, Dan Voiculescu taught courses for 8 years at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE), within the Department of International Economic Relations, covering the subject "Competition and Competitiveness". He collaborated with eleven other co-authors on the work "Competitiveness Analysis of the Romanian Economy. Horizon 2000-2005-2010. Alternative Strategic Solutions", published by the Romanian Academy Publishing House in 1998.

Two years later, he received the Virgil Madgearu Award for the year 1998 from the Romanian Academy. This was part of the Romanian Academy Awards, a newly established series of distinctions across multiple fields, with this specific award being one of the seven prizes in the "Economic, Legal, and Sociological Sciences" section.

From 2003 to 2007, he suspended his teaching activities in protest against the ease with which doctoral degrees were granted to individuals of questionable morality or professionalism. He returned to teaching in 2007, and in 2008 he requested the Senate's Legal Committee, along with 16 other senators, to approve his concurrent accumulation of functions. The Legal Committee issued a favorable opinion on his request, allowing him to continue his activity as a university professor at ASE parallel to his role as a senator.

Starting in 2020, he resumed university activity as a student, completing the bachelor's degree program at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Bucharest, Social Work Department, in June 2023.

After 1990, he founded the Grivco Holding, becoming the majority shareholder in 1992. Initially, its main activity was foreign trade. This was followed by involvement in media and the launch of an A4-format newspaper, Jurnalul Național, and the first commercial television station in Romania, Antena 1. Over time, the group's activities focused on the foreign trade of industrial materials, energy trade, agriculture, and mass media, giving rise to the GRIVCO holding, currently structured into 3 divisions: commerce, media, and industry & services. Dan Voiculescu reached his first million dollars in 1996, consisting of approximately 400,000 in dividends from GRIVCO and around 600,000 in dividends from Antena 1. The most well-known company of the Grivco group is Intact Media Group, with the Antena TV Group subgroup, which together comprise the television stations Antena 1, Antena 2, Antena 3, Euforia TV, Antena International, and GSP TV; the radio stations Romantic FM and Radio ZU; the publications Jurnalul Național, Gazeta Sporturilor, Săptămâna Financiară, Felicia, Confidential, BBC Top Gear, BBC Good Food, and BBC Science Focus; the Intact printing house, and the "Mereu Aproape" Foundation.

In 2006, Dan Voiculescu donated all the shares he held in the group of companies he founded, in equal parts, to his two daughters, withdrawing entirely from business. The media trust was transferred in 2006 to his daughter, Camelia Voiculescu, following Dan Voiculescu's intention to occupy the position of Deputy Prime Minister in the Tăriceanu government, representing the Conservative Party, a post from which George Copos had resigned. In October 2009, Capital magazine evaluated the wealth of the entire Voiculescu family at 1.5–1.6 billion euros. Following Voiculescu's conviction and imprisonment, the family's wealth decreased over the next 6 years to 180–200 million euros.

Between 2013 and 2017, Antena TV Group was prosecuted in a corporate blackmail case. Sorin Alexandrescu, the general director, threatened Ioan Bendei, the administrator of RCS & RDS. Alexandrescu demanded the signing of a retransmission contract for Antena TV Group stations under dictated terms, threatening a media smear campaign regarding alleged corruption if the demand was refused. RCS & RDS reported the extortion. The National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) investigated the acts. Dan Voiculescu was indicted initially for complicity in the blackmail operation. On May 12, 2016, the Bucharest Court of Appeal issued the initial ruling, convicting Voiculescu and sentencing him to two years in prison. On June 28, 2017, the High Court of Cassation and Justice issued the final verdict on appeal: Dan Voiculescu was not guilty of complicity to blackmail.

The Dan Voiculescu Foundation for the Development of Romania

FDVDR is a non-governmental organization in Romania operating in the field of education. Its educational projects cover subjects from the school curriculum, while simultaneously developing programs dedicated to vocational education, entrepreneurial education, and excellence.

The FDVDR scholarship program is intended to encourage and assist exceptional youth with outstanding results in the fields of science, culture, or technology.[1] Over time, FDVDR scholarship recipients have included Ionuț Budișteanu, Matei Bucur Mihăescu, and others. FDVDR has also awarded awards of excellence to personalities in the fields of science and culture. Award recipients include Justin Capră, Radu Beligan, Gabriela Ficz, and others.

Pre-Revolutionary Romania

Vitrocim (1970-1982)

After graduating from the Faculty of Foreign Trade at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Dan Voiculescu was assigned to the Tehnoforest enterprise. From there, he was transferred to a newly formed foreign trade enterprise, ICE Vitrocim, where he worked as an economist and subsequently as a department head between 1970 and 1982.

Crescent (1982-1992)

Between 1982 and 1992, he was active within the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania and served as the director of the Romanian representation of Crescent Commercial & Maritime Ltd., a company owned by Fouad Sanbar, a Greek citizen. Following Fouad Sanbar's death, Voiculescu inherited the Crescent company.

Post-Revolutionary Romania

In 1991, Voiculescu founded the Humanist Party of Romania, which changed its name to the Conservative Party (PC) in May 2005. Voiculescu held the executive presidency of the political formation between 1991 and 2005, a period during which the party became an ally of the Social Democratic Party under the Adrian Năstase government. In 2008, despite being officially in the opposition, the PSD achieved a lower score than the PDL, marking a weaker performance than in the 2004 elections. Consequently, the PSD lost approximately 0.9 million voters: dropping from 3.2 million votes in 2004 (when it ran alongside Dan Voiculescu's PUR) to 2.35 million votes. Under Voiculescu's leadership, the party also markedly changed its doctrine to embrace conservative values in line with the views of the European People's Party in the European Parliament. The PC, however, did not join the European People's Party.

The PC, then called the PUR, supported the Social Democratic Party (PSD)-led government from 2000 to 2004, and ran in coalition with the PSD in the 2004 parliamentary and presidential elections. The PC was also part of the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu from December 2004 until the party withdrew in 2006. According to Freedom House, one reason the government of Popescu-Tăriceanu included the small PC, which received support from only 2 percent of the population, was due to the strength of Voiculescu family's Antenna 1 television station. PC ran in a coalition with PSD in the 2008 legislative elections, and Voiculescu was elected senator in a Bucharest district.

As member of the Romanian Senate, Voiculescu has been strong in his opposition to Romanian President Traian Băsescu, who he states has exceeded constitutional boundaries and abused power. In March, 2007, he established a special commission within the Parliament to investigate Băsescu's actions as president and sponsored the legislation in the Parliament that led to a national referendum over whether Băsescu should remain in office. Voiculescu was also strongly opposed to former Minister of Justice Monica Macovei.

In April 2007, the Parliamentary Committee led by Senator Dan Voiculescu managed, for the first time in the post-revolutionary Romania, the suspension of an acting president. The report drawn up by the "Voiculescu Committee" was adopted in the Romanian Parliament, with 322 votes "for" and 108 "against"; President Traian Băsescu was thus suspended from his function.

Voiculescu opposed a draft law proposed by Justice Minister Monica Macovei and supported by the European Commission to set up a special agency for checking assets declarations for MPs and other senior officials. He subsequently supported a version characterized as "watered down" by the international media.

In September 2007, Dan Voiculescu resigned from his senator function as a form of protest against the blocking in the Romanian Parliament, of various important social laws. They were about promoting his projects on extending the contracts of tenants in the nationalized houses, reducing VAT on food, solidarity fund for pensioners and non-taxation of reinvested profits, legislation designed to bring more money to pensioners with low incomes, to lower prices on basic food or assist companies to reinvest their profits.

In November 2008, by occasion of the first elections held in the plurality system, Dan Voiculescu returned to the Romanian Parliament, obtaining 21,708 votes in the 8th college in Bucharest, and in December 2008 he was elected vice-president of the Senate of Romania, with 83 votes for and 2 against.

Corruption investigation

The Romanian National Anti-corruption Department (DNA) announced on April 3, 2007, that it was investigating Voiculescu, his daughter, and several business associates for money laundering, with regard to funds obtained through the national lottery. Voiculescu denied all the charges, claiming the investigation was politically motivated and that the transactions were legal.

In October 2009, following some articles in the press, the vice-president of the Romanian Senate, Dan Voiculescu, has undergone a vetting process carried out by the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF), verification based on which ANAF has established that the allegations surrounding the senator Dan Voiculescu have no real basis.

The ICA Trial

At the end of 2008, Dan Voiculescu was indicted by the National Anticorruption Directorate, accused of using his influence in 2003 as the leader of a governing party to facilitate Grivco's acquisition of the majority stake in the Food Research Institute (ICA).

The file was sent to the High Court of Cassation and Justice due to Voiculescu's status as a member of parliament.[91] The trial proceedings were postponed seven times until November 2010. In December 2010, Dan Voiculescu was heard, claiming the file was politically ordered by Traian Băsescu. Six new postponements followed; the trial advanced and was transferred from the High Court of Cassation and Justice to the Bucharest Tribunal following Voiculescu's resignation from Parliament. On September 26, 2013, he was sentenced by the Bucharest Tribunal to 5 years in prison for the crime of money laundering. Both the DNA and Voiculescu, along with other co-defendants, filed appeals against the sentence, which were debated at the Bucharest Court of Appeal on August 4 and 5, 2014. On August 8, 2014, the Bucharest Court of Appeal admitted the DNA's appeal regarding Dan Voiculescu, changed the legal classification of the acts attributed to him, and increased his sentence to 10 years in prison.

On September 26, 2013, Dan Voiculescu was found guilty and sentenced to 5 years in prison. In the case of using his political connections to influence the sell of the Institute for Alimentary Research to Grivco a company that he had a stake in. The case was postponed several years because Dan Voiculescu resigned several times from the Romanian Parliament.

Voiculescu was incarcerated at Rahova Penitentiary on August 8, 2014, and the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) seized several of his properties to cover the damages. In less than a year and a half in prison, Voiculescu wrote eleven books, which brought him a reduction of over 300 days from his served sentence. He was released on parole from prison after 2 years and 11 months, although the damages had not been paid.

Following the pronouncement of the decision, one of the judges in the case, Camelia Bogdan, was excluded from the magistracy by the judges' section of the Superior Council of Magistracy because she received money from one of the parties involved in the trial, namely the Ministry of Agriculture; the CSM decision was, however, annulled on appeal. Subsequently, during an interview with Evenimentul Zilei TV, journalist Adrian Ursu stated that Antena 3 had been informed that if they left Mircea Băsescu alone, Dan Voiculescu would be acquitted.

On September 11, 2025, the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ÎCCJ) annulled a dismissal ordinance issued by the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice and definitively established that former judge Camelia Bogdan committed the crime of abuse of office when judging the ICA file, with the ÎCCJ maintaining the dismissal of the case while changing its legal basis. The decision is final.