He assures that the complaint contains “allegations without any kind of foundation”
MADRID, 31 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Investigating Court Number 52 of Madrid has decreed the provisional dismissal and the filing of the proceedings that it opened against 29 companies related to the Restalia Group –including 100 Montaditos, La Sureña and The Good Burger– as a result of a complaint filed by several franchisees for alleged crimes of fraud, criminal organization, coercion and computer crimes.
In an order, to which Europa Press has had access, the head of the Court has concluded that “the complaint contains a totum revolutum of accusations without any kind of foundation, about crimes against the rights of workers, against social security, or the public finances, and even money laundering”.
In the resolution, signed yesterday Monday, the instructor has specified that the arguments contained in the complaint “are nothing more than interested and highly subjective assessments of the complainants that do not allow a rigorous analysis.”
The cause had its origin in a complaint filed by the offices Cremades
In 10 pages, the instructor has reviewed the complaint filed in June 2022. In this sense, he recalled that the franchisees –“through an extensive letter” and “a huge amount of documents”– assured that from the Restalia Group they had operated as a “criminal organization” that, through “deception”, made them sign franchise contracts, thus achieving the delivery of huge amounts of money.
As stated in the resolution, the complainants specified that the deception had occurred because they had “deliberately” hidden from them the existence of agreements with the suppliers that would make the franchises “unfeasible” and because they were led to believe that the restaurant businesses they would give benefits that in truth would never be feasible.
Regarding the alleged crime of fraud, the judge has indicated that he does not see “trial elements that allow us to understand that there has been any deception” by the Restalia Group towards the complainants.
“What has existed are businesses that for multiple reasons have not worked, but that are beyond the control of the denounced party and that do not constitute a case of criminal responsibility of the same,” he has settled.
In line, the judge has considered “rejectable” that “it is intended to sustain an accusation of fraud on the basis that the franchisee must have a price for the sale to the public of the products marked by the franchisor, or that the suppliers must be the that the franchisor establishes, or that the franchisee must abide by the changes of the menu by case that are established at the level of the entire national territory”.
In addition, he stressed that “it is normal and cannot be regarded as deception that the franchisor presents his business in the best possible way, with the most presentable figures and the highest expectations.”
Within the framework of the resolution, the instructor has stressed the fact that the complainants “are not mere natural persons ignorant of the business world”, but people who want to “dedicate themselves professionally to catering, business management, etc. ” . “The complainants are presumed to have the basic and elemental ability to understand the business that is proposed to them and the large figures that it entails,” he added.
On the sidelines, the head of the Court has made reference to the expert report that he commissioned in the framework of the procedure and in which it is mentioned that, in the specific cases of the complainants, all “were affected shortly after the franchising activity began due to the Covid 19 epidemic”.
Thus, he has assured that such an event “by itself is apt to destroy the most precise and conservative expectations of business, since particularly in the field of restoration, the epidemic led to a radical decline in their billings”.
In addition, the instructor recalled that a “large number” of The Good Burger, 100 Montaditos, La Sureña or La Sureña Blue franchisees are currently “still open to the public” with sufficiently profitable activity to stay in business.
