The Court of Instruction 2 of Tarragona investigates whether the law firm Equipo Economico (EE), founded in 2006 by former PP Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro, used his influence in that ministry to benefit gas companies in exchange for commissions. . According to an order from the Provincial Court of Tarragona, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the investigation, carried out by The Spanish Newspaper, It focuses on a plot supposedly created “to intervene and decisively influence” favorable legislative reforms for gas companies included in the Association of Industrial and Medicinal Gas Manufacturers (AGGIM). These companies supposedly hired the services of the law firm because its members “were holding positions at the highest level of the Government, Central Administration and Autonomous Communities,” which allowed them to create “a network of influence over senior officials and officials of the Ministry of Finance.” .
Cristóbal Montoro was Minister of Finance between 2000 and 2004, with José María Aznar, and between 2011 and 2018, with Mariano Rajoy. In 2006, between one foray into the Government and the next, he founded the firm Montoro Asociados, which he headed until 2008, when he left and the firm was renamed Equipo Economico. Ricardo Martínez Rico, who was Secretary of State for Budgets and Expenses with Montoro in the Aznar Government, was at the helm. Also part of the new society were Ricardo Montoro, brother of the former minister; Francisco Piedras Camacho, former director of the minister’s cabinet; Manuel de Vicente-Tutor, who held various positions in the Tax Agency (AEAT); and Salvador Ruiz Gallud, general director of the AEAT from August 2001 to April 2004.
The case, which remains secret and in which the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office participates, was opened in 2018 after the “accidental discovery” of some emails from 2013 seized during a search of the company. Messer Ibérica de Gases, in the town of Villaseca y Morell (Tarragona), which was being investigated for a crime against territorial planning. With the first tests carried out after finding the emails and an anonymous complaint, Anti-Corruption filed a complaint in 2018 for alleged crimes of bribery, fraud against the public administration, prevarication, influence peddling, prohibited negotiations, embezzlement, against the Public Treasury, money laundering. capital, corruption in business, falsification of documents, against free competition and membership in a criminal organization.
According to an order issued by the Provincial Court in January 2022, the center of the investigation is an alleged plot “whose purpose would be none other than to intervene and decisively influence favorable legislative reforms for the gas companies included in the Association of Gas Manufacturers. Industrial and Medicinal Gases (AGGIM)”. To do this, the Court adds, they hired the services of the company Equipo Economico (EE) formerly “Montoro Asociados” and currently since 2016 “Global Afteli” (GA). “Companies whose members would hold positions at the highest level of the Government, Central and Regional Administration, creating a network of influence on senior officials and officials of the Ministry of Finance to obtain tax benefits in favor of said gas companies, through legislative modifications that “It entailed a reduction in the electricity tax for these companies.” The amounts obtained by said services “due to their legal value and lack of value” are, according to the researchers, “covert commissions to achieve the intended legislative reforms.”
Police sources assure that the investigation became larger and more complex as it progressed. The first emails intercepted in the investigation that affected Messer Ibérica indicated the gas companies’ attempts, through reports from a consulting firm, to act as lobby and force a legislative change to achieve inclusion in a type of public aid. Given the refusal of the Treasury, the Mossos found an email where those investigated indicated that the only way they had left from that moment was to Montoro’s old office. “You have to go to the Economic Team,” police sources comment on the content of the email. Some time later, and after a fifteen-page report from the office, the same administration gave the green light to the change that the gas companies were pursuing, these same sources indicate. The investigation maintains that the operation was repeated in other sectors, such as gaming on-line or that of renewables. “But there are many ways to justify these types of legislative changes,” add sources from the investigation and admit the complexity of proving the involvement of the suspects in a scheme to collect bribes in exchange for legal reforms.
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Limit on communications intervention
The Court’s order approves the investigation carried out so far by Court 2 of Tarragona, Anti-Corruption, the Civil Guard and the Mossos d’Esquadra, but puts a stop to the judge’s intention to intervene in the communications of four of those investigated, a measure that the Prosecutor’s Office opposed because it was considered excessive for the accumulated evidence. The provincial court agrees with the public ministry. “The information transferred by the criminal investigation group of the Mossos d’Esquadra, evaluated as a whole, does not allow the threshold of suspicion or conjecture to be crossed at this time,” states the order, which highlights “the poor quality of the results.” contributed” so far by the researchers.
This is not the first time that the firm founded by Montoro has been under judicial scrutiny. Court number 22 of Madrid accepted for processing in 2017 a complaint filed by Anti-Corruption against several members of the office for the award, allegedly irregular in 2012, of a contract of 91,000 euros with the chambers of commerce, bypassing the State Contract Law. Among the defendants were Ricardo Montoro, Martínez Rico, Ruiz Gallud and Piedras Camacho. The investigation ended up being closed due to lack of solid evidence.
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