A new piece of the ERE whose education ends and does so with five defendants. The reinforcing judge of the Inquiry Court number 6 of Seville José Ignacio Vilaplana issued an order in which it prosecuted the former Minister of Innovation of the Council Martín Soler and five other persons under investigation in the case of analyzing loans worth 36,105,044 euros granted to the company Santana Motor within the framework of the specific collaboration agreement signed between the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Commerce of the Junta de Andalucía and the IDEA agency on December 15, 2009 for the creation ofand design capabilities, technological development and industrialization processes for off-road vehicles, named meet the Massif.
With an order issued on November 22nd and notified to the parties this Friday, the magistrate assumes this decision in the event that the reported facts could constitute crimes of administrative evasion, embezzlement of public funds and forgery of documents, the transfer of the case to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and to the defendant so that, within a common term of twenty days, they request the opening of the oral hearing by formulating the indictment or the dismissal of the case or, exceptionally, the practice of complementary documents essential to make the accusation.
The six suspects in this case are the former Minister of Innovation, Science and Commerce of the Junta de Andalucía Martín Soler; two former general managers of the IDEA agency, Jacinto Cañete and Antonio Valverde, and three representatives of Santana Motor.
The instructor explains in the car that this case is intended “the alleged illegitimacy of the formalization and publication -in a mendacious way-” of the so-called Massif agreement” and any irregular administration of the funds destined for its financing, execution and fulfillment”, specifying that, under this agreement, the IDEA agency, through conventions of the Board of Directors ratified by the Board of Directors of the Council on 15 December 2009, has approved the concession of a “repayable loan” to Santana Motor for the amount of Euro 25,735,044 and Euro 10,370,000 (total Euro 36,105,044), respectively.
In this sense, and as highlighted by the magistrate in the order, the General intervention of the Council stated in the minutes of the action of the IDEA agency that the agreement finally initialed on December 17, 2010, and signed by the former director and one of the former IDEA general managers under investigation, “contains a new replaced and incorporated text, different from that actually approved by the Board of Directors on December 15, 2009”, in such a way that the content of the agreement and its legal nature were “substantially” altered, and “what the IDEA agency (and subsequently Santana Motor) receives is not a credit refundable, as the Board of Directors had authorized, but non-refundable”.
Non-refundable aid
According to the judge, the performance report issued by the Intervention Board concluded that “…we are facing aa new agreement signed between the Department and the IDEA agency”, so that the competitor administrative act “would have been carried out with clear omission of the legally applicable procedures and principles”, a “breach” which meant that the loan which as such had been authorized by the Governing Council “would become a delivery of funds for no consideration to Santana Motor”, thus producing “a drain on these public funds, which would have been handed over to Santana without authorization from the Board of Directors and without having been recovered by the IDEA agency given the situation of insolvency and financial crisis in which this institution had been struggling for years.
The magistrate then analyzes the loan granted by IDEA to Santana Motor under the guardianship of “false” text of the agreement of 17 December 2009, and concludes that, taking into account the results of the procedures carried out, “It could be deduced that the managers of the IDEA Agency and of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Enterprise under investigation would have irregularly transferred the funds subject to the loan deriving from the Massif agreement in favor of Santana Motor Group, with the natural complicity and concurrence of its directors and representatives under investigation, knowing the non-feasibility of the project and the lack of economic capacity of the company itself for its unfair and arbitrary reinstatement, without no intention of improving the product and with the sole purpose of covering expenses already accrued which could not be cured or financed in any other way”.
Therefore, he underlines that “the sums delivered by IDEA to Santana Motor as a loan, subsequently modified into a participatory loan, would in reality be non-repayable aid kindly granted – without any intention of recovering it – outside the legally applicable procedures, thus proceeding arbitrarily allocate and dispose of those funds, without any justification of public interest, for mere voluntary action by the heads of the Ministry of Innovation and the IDEA agency, who would have had the natural collaboration of the Santana managers, resulting in an illicit disposition of public funds deriving from from the fraudulent use of the capital portion of the loan”.
The magistrate indicates it “It is not possible to verify that the funds transferred or contributed to Santana Motor were used in the Massif project” and states that “there are indications that the capital (36,105,044 euros) covered by the loans granted was destined for purposes other than those envisaged in the agreement”, since the subcontractors “which would have been recipients of the funds and would have been going to participate significantly in the execution of the project – being thus expressly designated according to the terms of the agreement itself – have only received funds – some, but not all – equal to 10,649,604 euros, if the period 2010-2011 is considered exclusively, an amount that is far from the 36,105,044 euros covered by the irregular loan described”.
Finally, Vilaplana states it “the illegitimacy of the irregular and unjustified administration and disposal of public funds in favor of the Santana Motor group cannot be understood as having no criminal relevance –much less to be understood as rectified – due to the mere fact that said corporate group was participated by the Board itself through the IDEA agency”, and this “taking into account that the entity obliged to repay the funds covered by the loan deriving from the Massif agreement was Santana Motor, a commercial company of a private nature – which also operates in a free market, did not intervene – even if its capital was essentially public, a circumstance which does not allow us to confuse the commercial company (with its own legal personality) with its majority shareholder”.
Vilaplana excluded the husband of the director general of the Guardia Civil
Last July, the judge dismissed the case against the husband of the current director general of the Guardia Civil and brother of the former president of Santana Motor over the aid received by the company.
Likewise, he opened several new rooms as a result of this procedure. In this way, according to Vilaplana “it is possible to deduce the possible illegitimacy of other financing instruments” of the Group. Among others, the “unjustified contribution of funds amounting to 14,466,779 euros” made in favor of the automotive group by Incuba (Incubadoras de emprendidores de Andalucía SL, the ownership of which was held by the IDEA agency through a “agreement to contribute funds to replace losses, carried out in July 2011 for an amount of Euro 14,466,779. The operation is justified in said agreement by adding the global losses that Santa Motor has had in previous years, which it has achieved €207,922 thousand, with losses for 2009 of €23,602 thousand; “So it would be a Contribution of Incuba to Santana in order to offset part of the losses accumulated by the company. It would therefore be identified with an irregular non-repayable financing transaction, with no repayment term, interest or repayment commitment”, reads the order of the investigating court number 6.
The ordinance also referred to the “irregular financing mechanism” which provides for the acquisition of real estate by the IDEA in favor of Santana Motor. Specifically, reference is made to the sale of four farms that the Group “allegedly sent to the Agency (which, in turn, owned Santana) for the price of 13,585,874 euros”. This is added, according to the instructions, to various “million-dollar transactions” for the sale of properties in the industrial area of Santana in Linares in favor of Idea “with the aim of urgently addressing the financial needs” of the auto group. These transactions, according to the order, would have been “of little or no economic advantage for the Idea Agency, which would already be the indirect owner of the properties as the owner – sole shareholder – of Santana Motor”.
