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The Institute for Ethics and Economic
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Telefonica's Alieta ordered
to pay 5 mln eurO bail in Tabacalera case. According to reports,
Telefonica SA chairman Cesar Alierta has been ordered to pay millions by a
SCH ditches AGM
days before its start. With no explanations, the leading Spanish bank
in the country has push back the date of its annual shareholders ‘meeting.
Delaying the meeting also means that the bank avoids some potentially
difficult questions on the charges of fraud and corruption levelled against
current and former executives, including the bank president. (Financial
Times, Tax haven ´preferential shares’ practice is highly irregular, says anti-corruption court. The anti-corruption department of the Spanish public prosecutor’s office has recommended that the public prosecutor, Jesus Cardenal, archive the investigation into the issuing of preferential shares on the part of the savings banks. The anti-corruption department questions whether these subsidiaries should be exempt from tax given that they are managed from Spain. (Northern Light (News, February 3, 2003 summary by Sherldine Tomlinson).
Suit against Telefonica head filed with public prosecutor . Carlos Jimenez Villarejo, who is the Spanish corruption prosecutor, filed a lawsuit with the director of public prosecutions Jesus Cardenal against Cesar Alierta, chairman of Spanish telecommunications group Telefonica and former chairman of Spanish tobacco group Tabacalera, his wife Cristina Placer, and his nephew, Luis Javier Placer. They are accused of having made Pta309m from the sale of shares in Tabacalera in 1997 and 1998. According to legal sources, Mr Jimenez Villarejo had kept Mr Cardenal informed of the progress of the case. (Financial Times, November 15, 2002, summary by Sherldine Tomlinson). MAYOR
SUSPECTED IN SPAIN’S WORST JUDICIAL BREACH- 50,000 PAGES OF EVIDENCE AGAINST
HIM MISSING. The Mayor Jesus Gily Gil, Spain’s most scandal- ridden
politician is in the spotlight following the theft of evidence from court,
relating to over 80 corruption cases pending against him. The court clerk,
the main suspect in the theft also committed suicide on 3rd October leading
to further speculations against the mayor. Gil, who was elected in 1991, has
been known for converting the coastline of Marbella into a concrete jungle of
holiday flats leading to a ten-fold increase in population. According to the
court documents the mayor is linked to the laundering of millions of dollars
in the real estate market of Marbella and many more millions that have gone
missing from the state coffers. Gil’s record includes an 18- month jail
sentence in 1969 when a complex he had built collapsed killing 58 people, and
an investigation into his role in funnelling public money into his soccer
team in 1999 which is one of the cases pending due to his appeal against the 6-
month jail sentence and a 28 year ban on holding public office. However, he
has managed successive re-elections for over a decade due to support from
certain parts of the public, which seems to be on the wane now. Gil,
languishing in the comfortable and secure haven that he has created for
himself has denied the allegations claiming that he is being made a victim in
an attempted government- smear campaign. (The Scotsman, October 30, 2001,
summary by Aruna Balakrishnan).
FORMER MINISTERS ACCUSED OF MISAPPROPRIATION OF STATE “RESERVED FUNDS” Several former ministers working under Prime Minister Felipe González of the Socialist Party which had been ruling over Spain for 13 years until five years ago, have been accused of misappropriating millions of pounds of state funds from the Interior ministry’s “Reserved Funds”. Former Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Vera, another Security Minister, two Interior Ministers, the Director- General of police and the anti- terrorism chief are amongst those accused, and Felipe González, whose Government fell 5 years ago following a spate of corruption scandals, has been summoned to appear as a witness in the trial. The trial relates to the Interior Ministry’s “Reserved Funds”, which are supposed to be used to fight against crime and corruption for which the ministry is officially not accountable to the parliament. These funds have been used to pay informers and members of the ministry- supported Anti- terrorist Liberation Group. This death squad group was instrumental in the 1980’s in eliminating members of the Eta, which was an armed separatist group. If indicted on the misappropriation charges, it is estimated that Senor Vera could face a punishment of upto 8 years in prison. Ironically, the current Popular Party Government of José María Aznar is also facing its first financial scandal with one of the senior ministers already having resigned after it was found that his sister, Pilar Valiente was an accomplice. The affair concerning an investment company, Gescartera, is to do with missing funds from its accounts to the tune of £52 million, which allegedly had been taken off from clients including the Roman Catholic Church, Association for the Blind and a Civil Orphan’s fund. The opposition Socialist party has demanded an investigation into the affair. (The Times, September 19, 2001, summary by Aruna Balakrishnan). INVESTIGATION
INTO THE SALE OF SINTEL TO MAS CANOSA. The Spanish anti-corruption
public prosecutors office has initiated preliminary investigations
into the sale of the Spanish telephone installation company Sintel
to the Cuban entrepreneur Jorge Mas Canosa in May 1996. The action
has
been brought by unions, which allege that the sale was a product of
fraudulent
conduct. According to Mr. Adolfo Jimenez, the chairman of the workers'
committee of Sintel, the documentation provided by the unions demonstrates
the 'plundering of millions of pesetas' by the former management
of the company. Meanwhile, Sintel's workers continue their vigil outside
the company's headquarters, demanding unpaid salaries. (Source: El
Pais,
March 14, 2001, summary by Pavlidis George). Spanish
anti-corruption public prosecutors office to investigate sale of Sintel to
Mas Canosa (El Pais, 14 March 01). Two former interior ministers are accused of embezzling $8 million in Govt. funds (NYTimes, Nov. 27, 1999). Mario Conde, financier was fined $20 million and a jail of 10 years for embezzling $50 million from the Banesto Bank, which went bankrupt in 1993. (NYTimes Apr. 1, 2K, p. A4).
The OECD anti-Corruption report for The Index of Economic Freedom (by Driscoll-Holmes-Kirkpatrick) for 2001 places Spain in the “Mostly Free” category with a rank of 37 (Ranks range from 1 for Hong Kong to 155 for North Korea, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1, 2000). H. D. Vinod’s trimmed correlation analysis indicates that countries free from economic regulation are less corrupt. After allowing for some exceptions by 20% trimming, the correlation is near 0.9.
The main anticorruption prosecutor in Spain (as of Feb. 2001) is FISCALÍA ANTICORRUPCION |
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Design: Theo den Brinker |
Copyright:
Hrishikesh D. Vinod 2000 |
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