The statement, initially scheduled for November 23, has been postponed due to a coincident summons from the magistrate
MADRID, 15 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The judge of the National High Court that is investigating whether Banco Popular committed an alleged crime of fraud against investors or non-compliance with the duties of information in the capital increase carried out in 2012 has postponed until November 30 the declaration of two former positions of the entity.
Legal sources have explained to Europa Press that the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 5, Santiago Pedraz, has agreed to postpone the summons that was initially scheduled for November 23. The magistrate must deal with a matter related to Eurojust that day.
Thus, the instructor will take a statement as investigated on November 30 to the former corporate and finance general director of the bank Jacobo González-Robatto and the former president of the Audit Commission José Ramón Rodríguez.
The two former directors will testify after the instructor has agreed to what was requested by the Prosecutor’s Office, which warned of “the need” for both to appear in this case that was born last June, when Judge Pedraz agreed to admit two complaints for processing different.
They focused on the expansion of the banking entity when considering that they could incur in “omissions and biased and misrepresented information to raise capital that would not otherwise have been possible to obtain, failing to comply with the information duties established in order to guarantee the stock market transparency.
These citations come after the judge took a statement this October from the former president of the bank, Ángel Ron, who ruled out that irregularities had been committed in the capital increase carried out in 2012, while defending that the brochure containing its conditions were “absolutely clear and transparent”.
The magistrate has also listened to the former vice president of the entity, Roberto Higuera, who maintained in his statement that all the operations were carried out correctly, recalling that the annual accounts for 2012 -the year in which Banco Pastor was absorbed- were audited by the consulting firm PwC.
The consultant herself also appeared before the magistrate, to whom she pointed out that she did not see any irregularity or anomaly when reviewing the accounts of Banco Popular for the year 2012, which in her opinion did express the real image of the entity.
It should be noted that the facts in which Pedraz investigates are different from those that are investigated in another court of the AN, the Central of Instruction Number 4. Specifically, Judge José Luis Calama investigates in two phases of the resolution process of the Popular: the alleged accounting irregularities of the entity in 2016, with the capital increase that year, and the leaks to the press a year later that would have caused its resolution in mid-2017.
In one of the admitted complaints, filed by Miguel Ángel Pereira and on behalf of another 50 people who lost their money as a result of the aforementioned capital increase, the financial situation of the bank in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012 is reported and the indications by which it is understood that the truth was lacking in the information given for the 2012 extension.
The second complaint, filed on behalf of the companies Cerquia Gestión and Cercupenta and Carlos Cercadillo, is directed against Banco Santander, Ron, the consulting firm PWC and the latter’s auditor, José María Sanz. In addition, the letter expands the object of the previous one by referring to crimes of accounting falsehood since 2008 as well as unfair administration.
