Seized goods: ten years of management in shadows

Ecuadornews:

Ten years after the State began the confiscation of assets linked to banking groups, the management, administrative results and the conditions of the total alienated companies continue to leave questions.

In all that time, the rights, attributions and obligations on these assets have passed through the hands of four government agencies.

 Until2015 and under the responsibility of the Central Bank of Ecuador, the last depository, there were 11,120 seized assets, the amount of which had not been fully established either.

Of these, 1,040 corresponded to shareholder packages of companies, as reported by the entity in a control action of the Comptroller’s Office. Up to that date,944 of them were registered as state property at 100%.

Today,a part of the total assets is in the AGD-CFN No More Impunity trust fund,constituted in 2009 for the administration and sale of seized assets related to the Isaías and Peñafiel groups, owners of the disappeared Filanbanco and Bancode Préstamos. This commission of goods is managed by the National Financial Corporation (CFN).

Another group of 11 media companies, which belonged to the Isaías, are in possession of the Public Company Public Media.

The Comptroller’s Office has four exams in place for administrative and financial operations of the trust. So far it has excluded a control action on all the companies seized active, inactive, in liquidation, canceled and contributed to the trust.

When the government of Rafael Correa ordered the confiscations, the offer was to compensate the State and the depositors with the sale of the goods. Until the closing of this report neither the Central Bank nor the CFN provided information that EXPRESO formally requested on the reception, administration,valuation and disposition of the seized assets.

As of September of this year, the trust had assets of $ 100 million and liabilities of $ 30 million, according to an accountability report of that entity, with acut off date of June 2018.

Within the assets, there are documents and accounts receivable from contributing companies for $ 28.1 million. They are pending collection with accounting entries, mostly, for the years 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. They belong to the companies San Nicolás (Grupo Peñafiel) and the sugar mill EQ2, EICA, Megagraf, Maxigraf, Uminasa, Intradeca, Morlantex, Indulana, Metromovil, Intercontinental de IMC Materials and Equinoxcorp (Grupo Isaías).

Amongits assets, the trust has registered packages and shareholdings of 99 companies-now almost all in liquidation- for a total of $ 17’026,040.68. Of those packages, 89 ($ 16,747,594.84) were sold to Grupo Isaías and 10 ($ 278,445.84)to Grupo Peñafiel.

Less than ten liquidators have been assigned by the CFN for the administration of almost a hundred companies en route to dissolution. But its management has deserved disapprovals from the same entity.

This is confirmed by 21 trades that the management of the CFN’s Trusteeship directed in2017 to several liquidators with calls for attention on the use of resources delivered by the trust. The documents are included in the last report of accountability sent to the Central Bank.

This newspaper collected documentation on an irregular negotiation of share packages involving four of those companies in liquidation. On these seized companies,since 2008 they weigh precautionary measures that prohibit the negotiation and transfer of their shares. The complaint of this recent case reached the authorities of the CFN.

“The liquidators cannot sell the companies or the shares because it is legally forbidden”, corroborates Jorge Zavala Egas, judicial attorney for Robertoand William Isaías, ex-owners of Filanbanco, who demand the return of the goods from the State.

In 2016the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations (UN) issued in Geneva(Switzerland) an opinion on this confiscation, before a complaint against the State presented by the Isaias. Both parties argue that the ruling favored them.

For the State Attorney General’s Office, the UN committee did not determine any violation regarding the seizures as such, nor did it refer to its legality or legal validity.

On July20, a judge ruled in favor of the precautionary measures that prevent the auction and sale of assets sold. That decision was judicially ratified in later dates.

Accordingto Zavala, the Geneva opinion requires an integral reparation for the violation of the rights of its defendants. This, according to the lawyer, means there turn of the goods.

The intention is also to collect from the State the assets that were sold. “Itwill not be done to the purchasers. We consider them buyers in good faith,therefore we will not exercise any actions, “the Isaías attorney advances.

Three years ago, as assets seized, the State had registered the property of 426properties and 9,423 movable assets. The Disappeared Unit of Management and Execution of Public Law of the AGD-CFN No More Impunity Trust (Ugedep) had transferred 351 regularized properties to the Ministry of Agriculture, Real Estate, the Secretariat of Communication (Secom) and the Water Secretariat(Senagua).

The Central Bank, for its part, reported that last year the transfer of 970 real estate assets to Real Estate and the Ministry of Agriculture culminated. (I)

Source: https://www.expreso.ec/actualidad/bienesincautados-administracion-cfn-contraloria-BM2493355