The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence of the National Court that sentenced the former director general of Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo (CAM) Roberto López Abad and the former director general of Companies of the same entity Daniel Gil Mallebrera to two years in prison, for unfair administration, with the mitigation of undue delay, in relation to credit operations granted to the company Valfensal to acquire hotels and plots in the Caribbean.
The Supreme Court dismisses the appeal of both to the judgment of December 15, 2020, in which they were also sentenced to five years of special disqualification from the exercise of any position, job or profession within or on behalf of a bank or Spain credit.
The National Court, in the judgment under appeal, also condemned the owners and legal representatives of Valfensal, Juan Vicente Ferri Guardiola and José Salvador Baldó Llorens, as inducers of a crime of unfair administration and three crimes against the Public Treasury, with the mitigating of reparation for the damage caused and analogy of confession of the facts, to a total of 2 years in prison and a fine of 3 million euros for each of them, who did not appeal to the Supreme Court.
In terms of civil liability, the sentence now confirmed establishes that López Abad and Gil Mallebrera must jointly and severally indemnify the Deposit Guarantee Fund, in the amount of 28 million euros, plus the corresponding legal interest, declaring the direct civil liability of the insurance company CASER up to the limit of 15 million. The Supreme Court also dismisses the appeal filed by the insurance company.
The National Court considered it proven that the two former executives caused very serious damage to the bank through a series of risky operations that forced the FROB to carry out a series of money injections to alleviate this mismanagement.
The high court in its sentence emphasizes that it sentences them “for putting the interests of third parties before those of the entity, thereby causing patrimonial damage to it.” He adds that they were not punished for “bad or deficient management or technically faulty, imprudent performance,” but for being disloyal to their entity, putting outside interests first with full knowledge of such a situation.
“It is not simply a matter of an especially serious infringement of banking regulations, as indicated by the Supreme Court in its response to López Abad’s appeal, but an unfair abuse of his functions as CEO against the economic interests of the entity with effective damage for the same through fraudulent dispositions. It is true that criminal behaviors coincide with poor bank management that led to the intervention of the FROB, but this is the basis, not sufficient, but necessary to be able to determine the disloyalty in their behavior, the abuse of functions, their own benefit or that of third parties, and to be able to condemn such punctual behaviors that have acquired criminal relevance beyond banking irregularities”.
