The Civil Guard appeared this Tuesday at Abengoa’s headquarters in Seville as part of an operation ordered by the judge of the National High Court instructing the ‘Abengoa II’ case, Ismael Moreno, and which is under judicial secrecy .
Some twenty agents from the Central Operations Unit (UCO) sent from Madrid entered the offices that the infrastructure, energy and water company has on the Palmas Altas Campus shortly before 9:00 am. Specifically, the registration is taking place in the complex where the headquarters are located not only of its main administration but also of subsidiary companies, such as Abengoa Agua, Abengoa Energía or Abenewco.
According to union sources, the registration has begun as soon as the working day begins, when the agents have accessed different departments of the headquarters, where some 1,000 people work.
The workers have remained in the main building waiting for instructions from the agents, who upon entering asked them to leave their national identity documents on the tables and move away from computers, tables, shelves and drawers.
As reported by the president of the works council of Abengoa Energía, Laura Rodríguez, the agents have taken more than 50 computers from the internal audit and accounting plants, as reported by the president of the works council of Abengoa Energía, Laura Rodríguez. Once the computer equipment has been taken, the workers have been told to go home because “they didn’t work today.”
The Palmas Altas Campus is made up of seven buildings that form the headquarters of the Sevillian multinational, currently in bankruptcy proceedings, with a surface area of 96,000 square metres, of which 47,000 are used for offices and the rest for green spaces and facilities .
Where does the record come from?
As EP recalls, Abengoa’s tumultuous relationship with the National Court goes back a long way and has had chapters that have ended well for the company’s board, such as the 2018 acquittal for the collection of millionaire compensation from the leadership.
That resolution occurred in January 2018, when the magistrates of the Fourth Section of the Criminal Chamber acquitted the former Abengoa leader for the compensation received in 2015 by former president Felipe Benjumea and the former CEO Manuel Sánchez Ortega closely 11.5 million in the case of the first and 4.5 million in the case of the second.
The Chamber pointed out that they were adapted to the legal regulations and therefore there was no unfair administration in the Sevillian multinational. They also said that it was not proven that the commercial contracts of executive directors of February 23 of that year were drawn up to favor “improperly” the one who had been president of the company since 1991 or its number ‘two’, since they were imposed by reform legal, according to what the acquitted exposed during the oral hearing.
The sentence was then contrary to the criteria of the Public Ministry, which requested five years in prison for Benjumea, four years and three months for the CEO and four years in prison for the members of the Appointments and Remuneration Commission Mercedes Gracia Diez, Alicia Velarde Valiente and Antonio Fornielles Melero for the crime of unfair administration.
But in parallel to that instruction, the National High Court opened a new front against Abengoa, and Judge Moreno prosecuted Benjumea and Sánchez Ortega again for crimes of accounting falsehood and fraud in ‘Abengoa II’. This new avenue of investigation for the fraud of Abengoa investors received a significant boost in 2019 with the appearance in the process of the State Attorney, considering that the actions of those responsible for the company could harm general and public interests.
This lawsuit for accounting falsehood and investor fraud was filed in March 2016 after the instructor of the case on millionaire compensation, the judge of the National Court Carmen Lamela, refused to extend her investigation to a possible corporate crime for the alleged falsification of the accounts of the multinational, understanding that there was no connection between the two events.
Thus, a second complaint was filed by the Platform for Affected Parties for alleged crimes related to the market and consumers and falsifying accounts both against the members of the Board of Directors and against Benjumea and Sánchez Ortega. Now, five years later, the cause is still ‘alive’, and has resulted in the records of the Seville headquarters.
Abengoa is in the middle of the rescue process, waiting for the State Society of Industrial Participations (SEPI) to accept the . The last chapter was starred by the company (AbengoaShares) to refloat the company, declared last February in voluntary bankruptcy due to accumulating a debt of approximately 6,000 million.