The ruling of the Supreme Court that acquits the president of Ausbanc, Luis Pineda, of the crimes of extortion and fraud for which they were convicted in the National Court, has opened the door for the association of bank users to start a new legal battle to claim compensation for the damages caused by the opening of a judicial case. criminal, which led him to bankruptcy. Within the proposed strategy, the bankruptcy administrator of Ausbanc has appeared in extremis in the Villarejo case, specifically in the line that investigates BBVA, to demand compensation for its alleged participation in promoting a judicial procedure that ended the association.
The appearance of Ausbanc, which was accepted on June 10, as this newspaper has been able to verify, comes just before the culmination of the investigations led by the Central Court of Instruction number 6 of the National Court on the hiring of retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo by BBVA between 2004 and 2017. Although the investigation was concluded last January, by order of the Criminal Chamber of the National Court, which prohibited further proceedings, it was not until this Thursday that Judge Manuel García Castellón has officially agreed to its closure and has proposed judging the bank, as a legal entity; to the former president of the entity, Francisco González, among others.
Precisely, two of the accusations in this case are those made by the president of Ausbanc, Luis Pineda, and the association’s lawyer, Ángel María Garay, both represented as victims of the espionage that the undercover agent carried out for BBVA. According to the summary of the procedure, one of the Projects that Cenyt – the business network with which the former police officer carried out his private services – carried out for the bank was the one baptized as Pin, whose objective was to destabilize the banking consumer advocacy group.
Within the framework of these works, Villarejo collected information about Luis Pineda and his entourage, which he later captured in a report that ended up in the hands of the former head of security of BBVA, Julio Corrochano, prosecuted for being the link between the retired commissioner and the bank. This manager delivered said report to the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF), as well as a draft complaint, which was finally delivered “anonymously” in 2015 and which gave rise to the so-called Operation Nelsonthe police operation that dismantled Ausbanc and the self-proclaimed Manos Cleans union, led by Miguel Bernad, who was also convicted by the National Court of extortion and, later, acquitted by the Supreme Court.
The opening of criminal proceedings led to the imposition of a series of precautionary measures against those investigated, which have not been lifted until the high court’s ruling. In the case of Luis Pineda and Ausbanc, the then investigating judge Santiago Pedraz ordered the blocking of the association’s bank accounts, which caused a situation of insolvency. Finally, Ausbanc declared voluntary bankruptcy and went directly to the liquidation of the companies.
Taking advantage of the fact that two of Ausbanc’s companies are still alive because their liquidation processes are pending conclusion, and that the Supreme Court has declared the innocence of their directors, the bankruptcy administrator has proposed two ways to recover the lost money and be able to compensate the outstanding debts. The first is to claim civil property liability from the State, for which there is a one-year deadline and which, according to association sources, has not yet been done. The second formula is to accuse BBVA for the alleged mediation of its then senior officials to open a judicial investigation.
BBVA, against
BBVA, investigated as a legal entity in the Villarejo case, has opposed Ausbanc being part of the accusations. In an appeal presented on June 14, to which this newspaper has had access, the entity’s lawyers emphasize that the association is not “harmed” by the facts being investigated in this case. In this sense, it explains that there are no “personal data” that could have been affected by the alleged crime of revealing secrets, while remembering that natural persons, such as the president and the lawyer, are present in the case to defend this issue. from Ausbanc.
BBVA’s defense adds that the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Ausbanc case makes it clear that there is no irregularity in the processing of the judicial investigation and that “the anonymous complaint was perfectly valid and there was no violation of fundamental rights in the genesis of the procedure.” ”.
Thus, to defend that the appearance of Ausbanc may be detrimental to the bank’s right of defense, the appeal emphasizes that, although the high court considered that Pineda did not commit a crime of extortion and fraud, it did verify that BBVA suffered a “campaign” of discredit” by the association because “it had freely decided to stop paying advertising to Ausbanc Empresas.”
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