The Third Section of the Seville Court has sentenced the former general secretary of UGT-A, Francisco Fernández Sevilla, to three years in prison and a fine of 50 million euros, for a continued crime of falsification of a commercial document in competition with a crime of subsidy fraud, all due to the “conscious and fraudulent” application of funds received from the Junta de Andalucía for a total amount of 40,620,256.43 euros for training courses for unemployed and employed people, for “purposes other than those for which they “should have been allocated, and those that the UGT-A has provided to finance the union’s own activities, unrelated to the social purpose for which they received them.”
In the ruling, released by the Communication Office of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), the court, which applies the mitigation of undue delays in said crimes, also imposes on Fernández Sevilla the loss of the possibility of obtaining subsidies or aid. public and the right to enjoy tax or Social Security benefits or incentives for a period of four years and six months.
Likewise, the Third Section of the Court imposes these same sentences as perpetrators of said crimes on three other former officials of the union: the former deputy general secretary of administration of UGT-A Federico Fresneda; the former secretary of economic management of the union María Charpín and the then CEO of the Soralpe entity Enrique Goicoechea, while also condemning the person responsible for the Purchasing department of UGT-A Dolores Sánchez, although in this case as an accomplice of the aforementioned crimes and imposes six months and two days in prison, a fine of 25 million euros and the loss of the possibility of obtaining subsidies or public aid and the right to enjoy tax or Social Security benefits or incentives during a period of one and a half years.
In terms of civil liability, the court condemns the five former officials of the union to jointly and severally compensate the Junta de Andalucía in the amount of 40,620,256.43 euros – the four convicted as perpetrators of the crimes must face the 99 percent of this amount, and the person convicted as an accomplice to 1 percent of it, and in a subsidiary manner with those convicted as authors up to the limit of 4,288,707.74 euros-, which corresponds to the total amount that would have been defrauded, declaring UGT-A subsidiary civil liability for the total amount.
The magistrates have taken into account the “seriousness” of the conduct carried out, “the amount of the subsidies, the amount of what was defrauded, the multiplicity of requests and criminal modalities, the damage caused to the workers for whose training the subsidies were intended. and in general for society, the social alarm produced by criminal actions such as those now sentenced, and even more so when they are carried out by social agents who, precisely, are granted subsidies for their proclaimed defense of the interests of the workers and unemployed.
Similarly, the Provincial Court acquits nine other defendants who were prosecuted as necessary collaborators of said crimes after acting as suppliers to the union through the companies they represented.
Prosecutor’s Office Accusation
In the trial, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office requested seven years in prison and a fine of 50 million euros for each of the four main convicts, as well as five years in prison and also a 50 million fine for the head of the union’s Purchasing department, while for the suppliers he demanded the imposition of three years in prison and the payment of a fine of 3,600 euros.
The Third Section of the Hearing considers it proven that the UGT-A union received subsidies from the General Directorate of Training of the Employment Department of the Government of Andalusia to carry out training actions and that, in the period between 2009 and 2013, “by decision of the Regional Executive Commission of UGT-A”, whose highest representatives “were Manuel Pastrana, who served as general secretary until May 2013, with Francisco Fernández Sevilla, deputy secretary of Organization and general secretary from May 2013 until December 3 of the same year, and Federico F., who in the period 2009 to 2013 was head of the deputy secretary of Administration”, launched “a series of procedures that used different suppliers of the union and related entities” in order to obtain a financing channel to cover the union’s own structural expenses at the expense of public funds.
Mechanisms to justify expenses “mendaciously”
To do this, they used different procedures, such as “obtaining discounts, commissions and rebates from suppliers that did not appear in the invoices presented as justification of expenses to the granting body of the subsidy”, thus, by hiding their reality , it was possible to allocate the entire amount to the subsidy without taking into account the agreed discount, leaving UGT-A with the difference between the declared cost and what was actually borne.
Invoices from suppliers and other accounting documents containing generic concepts were also prepared, either for unsold goods or services not performed, or for goods or services that were assigned a higher value than they really had, or for goods or services specific to the company. union but without connection with the subsidy to which they were attributed, to “mendaciously” justify the expenses attributed to public funds.
Likewise, according to the magistrates, “other systems were carried out to allocate non-eligible expenses such as salaries of employees and Soralpe I+P Asociados SL to the training courses granted to UGT-A, when they did not actually work in them, as well such as structural and maintenance expenses of the union (telephone bills, electricity, cleaning, etc.) and, also, the payment of rent for classrooms and facilities owned by UGT-A (…)”.
Acquitted suppliers
The magistrates analyze up to 14 files of subsidies received by UGT-A for training actions and specify the exact amount of expenses justified by the union for each file that are not eligible, raising said amount to a total of 40,620,256.43 euros.
The Third Section of the Hearing acquits all the defendants who were judged as suppliers to the union, estimating that “the responsibility that could be attributed should be that related and specific to the subsidy files that are the subject of this procedure, and not to their global relationship. with the union, which is not the subject of accusation.”
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