The Second Section of the Criminal Chamber of the National Court has rejected the request of the PDECat to archive the case of the so-called 3% with respect to this defunct political formation and to declare its civil and criminal liability in this procedure extinguished.
The representation of the PDECat had requested the definitive archive of the procedure as the commercial court 8 of Barcelona had agreed to the extinction of the legal entity of said formation.
In an order, the court in charge of prosecuting this case bases its refusal on a ruling from the Supreme Court in which it states that “although the registration of the deed of extinction and the cancellation of all the registry entries of the extinguished company entails, in In principle, the loss of its legal responsibility, insofar as it cannot operate in the market as such, preserves this personality with respect to pending claims based on supervening liabilities, which should have formed part of the liquidation operations. For these purposes, related to the liquidation of the company, it continues to have personality and therefore the capacity to be sued.”
In the opinion of the Chamber, a coherent interpretation of said ruling supports that in the present case the capacity to be part of the defunct PDECat can be maintained and that the legitimacy of its bankruptcy administration is recognized to continue acting through its procedural representation for the purposes of that the company can be defended in the act of trial.
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, which is requesting a three million euro fine for the PDECat for a crime of money laundering, has already maintained that, regardless of the fact that the contest has concluded “without mass”, “it must be through criminal proceedings in which “It is determined, firstly, if there is responsibility of CDC and, secondly, if there are assets in the name of PDECat that must respond in relation to said responsibility.”
In November 2022, the judge of the National Court Santiago Pedraz agreed to open an oral trial regarding the political formations PDECat and CDC and the former treasurers of the latter Germá Gordó, Daniel Osàcar and Andreu Viloca in the so-called 3 percent case, the structure put in place supposedly to finance said party illegally through public works tenders.
In his resolution, the head of the central court of investigation 5 agreed to the opening of an oral trial with respect to a total of thirty natural persons, including politicians, businessmen and officials from different administrations and public institutions in Catalonia, and 16 legal persons, and indicated to the Criminal Chamber as the competent body for the prosecution of these events. The case has been in the National Court since 2018 and is still pending a trial date.
The PDECat was born in July 2016, when the CDC lowered the blinds after the confessions of former president Pujol and the information that linked the party to corruption. Today, several of the protagonists of that decision and other people who have ultimately had responsibilities in the PDECat admit that perhaps the change of brand was a mistake.
