Investors point to the former president and former members of the board and estimate the damage at around 32 million euros
MADRID, 21 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The judge of the National Court (AN) Ismael Moreno has agreed to initiate preliminary proceedings after the presentation by 594 individuals affected by the alleged irregularities that were allegedly committed within the Spanish multinational Abengoa and that would have involved losses of almost 32 million euros.
This has been confirmed to Europa Press by the Iuris office
The firm considers that its clients, small savers who invested their savings in Abengoa, have been affected by the alleged crimes of documentary falsification, fraud, unfair administration, seizure of assets, punishable insolvency, corruption between individuals, investor fraud and of falsification of private document among others.
The office indicates 24 people as their alleged perpetrators, including the former president of Abengoa Gonzalo Urquijo and several former members of the board of directors such as former ministers Josep Borrell and Josep Piqué. In addition, the complaint also points to Banco Santander, Abenewco and Terramar.
“The recent history of the millionaire losses of all the minority shareholders that, specifically and for our clients, exceed 31,900,000 euros, is the story of a maneuver to decapitalize the company and transfer profitable business lines to other mercantile , subsidiaries, taking control away from it, which has unfortunately culminated in a successful manner”, they report from Iuris
The office assures that “everything began after the financial restructuring of the company, which involved the assumption of a loss in value of the free float of 95%, that is, of the investors who acquired their shares on the stock market, and the transfer of certain assets to companies newly created that were finally Abengoa Abenewco 2 SA, Abengoa Abenewco 2 Bis SA and Abengoa Abenewco 1 SA”.
“But maintaining a large part of the liabilities in Abengoa SA, favoring certain creditors, to the detriment of the interests that institutionally should have been protected, Abengoa SA and its minority investors,” adds the office, which points out “that if they were harmed it is because other were benefited, granting them financial instruments to gain ownership of profitable Abengoa companies”.
The firm points out that now, at the bankruptcy venue, which includes 26 subsidiaries together with the parent company Abengoa Abenewco 1 SA, “it is intended to transfer to third parties the business that had belonged to Abengoa SA, its production units, without the results obtained serving to defray the losses of Abengoa’s shareholders”.
“In recent years, wills were bought and at least one framework was prepared with one objective, to take over the majority of Abengoa’s assets, stripping minority shareholders of what belonged to them due to their status as such. Now after the bankruptcy of Abengoa, its dissolution and in its liquidation, the value that Abengoa has over the subsidiaries that hold the profitable business activities, has been reflected in the plan for its liquidation in bankruptcy, and is literally 0.00 euros”, denounced .
In its complaint, the office refers to the “discordance of the voting minutes that approved the restructuring, the delivery of assets to creditors and their resale in a short time with impudent capital gains, the payment of favors to certain directors, the attempt to sale of Abengoa’s assets to insolvent companies, in which one of them even charged for the simple fact of bidding”.
Likewise, the letter “reports this aim of de-patrimonialization to the detriment of the owners of Abengoa, including plans I and II called del Vellocino” which, according to the office “some sought gold at the expense of the misery of others; the making corporate agreements to their own detriment and for the benefit of third parties”.
“Other facts are presented for investigation such as the doubtful signature that have marked the course of the company, in particular, the bankruptcy application; the privileged information from which certain directors have prevailed, the sanctions of the CNMV for not presenting the company its annual accounts, unheard of in any country around us, so that third parties could not know the reality of the company, causing errors, by deception, to investors”, explains the firm.
Additionally, emphasis is placed on the alleged existence of “one or more schemes to enrich themselves with the destruction of Abengoa SA”, a mechanism that would have been used to take “before, the assets and hopes of those who had trusted the promises of the advisers who encouraged those who credulously believed them to invest”.
It should be remembered that Judge Moreno is in charge, in parallel, of the case known as ‘Abengoa II’. In it, it investigates whether two subsidiaries of the group –Abengoa Solar and Abengoa Bioenergía– would have concealed their economic-financial reality in the years 2014 to 2016 through “artifices”, which would contain “gross inaccuracies” with detrimental effects for partners, shareholders and third parties.
The judge suspects that substantial losses of assets would have been systematically hidden and included certifications of works that were not sufficiently accredited -for a value of at least 4,514 million euros- to cause a “notable alteration of the real appearance of the economic situation- entity’s finances”.
As explained to this news agency by the firm Iuris
