The judge of the 'Popular case' refuses to exclude Banco Santander as possible civil liability of the extinct entity

Considers that in this proceeding "the judgment of the CJEU" to which Santander alluded is not applicable

MADRID, 26 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The judge of the National High Court in charge of the investigation of the 'Popular case' has refused to exclude Banco Santander as possible civil liability of the defunct Banco Popular, considering that the case is in a procedural state too premature to rule on the matter.

In an order from this same Monday, collected by Europa Press, the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 4, José Luis Calama, has agreed to maintain his "legitimation of possible civil responsibility" alluding again to "the phase of judicial investigation in which "The cause is found.

It was on June 10 when the entity chaired by Ana Botín asked the magistrate to exclude Santander after the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on May 5.

That judgment declared that the European regulations on resolution preclude shareholders who bought shares of Popular before its resolution from being able to demand responsibility from Santander for the information contained in the prospectus or exercise an action for annulment of the subscription contract for those shares, which would lead to the restitution of the amounts invested and the accrued interest.

However, Judge Calama disagrees with Santander's position. "For dialectical purposes, we dissent" ad integrum "from such claim given that in this criminal proceeding, in our opinion, the ruling of the CJEU is not applicable," he maintains.

In this sense, the instructor recalls "that the origin of the CJEU resolution is due to a preliminary ruling that the Court of A Coruña raised within a procedure of a strictly civil nature and completely unrelated to the criminal field."

Aligning himself with the position of the Prosecutor's Office, the judge makes it clear that "the possible civil liability of Banco Santander that is discussed in this criminal procedure is not affected by the CJEU ruling, which in no case analyzes the regulations on civil liability derived from a criminal offence, in the context of a resolution process of a financial entity".

"It is not up to this Instructor to make an exegetical pronouncement on the CJEU resolution in the phase of judicial investigation in which we are, interfering in the genuine interpretation that is the competence of said court," concludes the judge.

This decision by Calama is part of the case in which the magistrate investigates the alleged accounting irregularities of Banco Popular in 2016 and the leaks to the press a year later that would have caused its resolution in mid-2017, and which sees its end after five years of research.