The Provincial Court of Cartagena has acquitted two Caixabank employees accused of fraud and misappropriation. They had been accused of granting 300 mortgages to foreign clients for values higher to the value of appraisal of the house between the years 2005 and 2006 (in full boom of the real estate bubble). These actions assumed millionaire losses to the entity, which He claimed 41.3 million euros for civil liability.
According to the sentence to which news has had work, everything originated after an audit of Caixabank in 2006 in which they were detected irregularities in the granting of mortgages. In this way it was discovered that the workers had been granting these credits overvaluing the appraisals of the real estate, and qualifying them as first residences when the purchase was intended for real estate speculation, something very common at that time.
After investigations on the case, the two accused of Crimes of continued scam and undue appropriation, claiming them Caixabank 41,388,603.35 euros, for the economic damages that had caused the entity of these operations.
Justice acquits them and considers that they did not exceed their powers
In a first phase of this judicial process, the evidence analyzed by the Court of Instruction No. 4 of Cartagena, revealed that on average housing appraisals were overvalued by 19% And many of the clients were not residents in Spain, nor did they intend to be, so the properties would not be their habitual housing.
It was stressed that the two workers had exceeded their faculties to the Approve operations that violated the Bank’s internal standards, acting against them with intermediaries and appraisers to facilitate operations.
During the trial, the Prosecutor’s Office maintained that the defendants had acted with “enough deception” to error both the buyers and the banking entity, causing significant patrimonial damages. The defense, on the contrary, argued that during that time it was very common for the operations to be carried out in this way and the appraisals were not misguided, so the employees acted within their faculties.
Finally, and after getting the case until itTo the Provincial Court, it concluded with the acquittal of the workers By, as detailed in the sentence, lack of the essential elements to attribute the crimes imputed. Scam crimes are collected in the Criminal Code in articles 248, 249 and 250 of the Criminal Code, and based on these, the Court concluded that an “ideal deception to error” had not been proven to error ” To Caixabank.
According to the Court: “The act of patrimonial disposition was made by those accused in the exercise of the powers granted by the banking entity, without a causal link between the alleged deception and the disposition of the heritage.” In addition, it was stressed that Buyers knew the conditions of the operations and participated in them for speculative purposes.
It also supported the prior jurisprudence of the Supreme Court in which it is determined that in cases where the act of disposition is carried out by a representative of the entity, “it cannot be seen scam If the deception is not a direct cause of the act of provision.” Highlights the sentence that the practice of granting Overvalued mortgages based on the revaluation of homes was also a very common practice in the era prior to the 2008 crisis.
They were also accused of a crime of improper appropriation, regulated by article 252 of the aforementioned law, of which they were acquitted, since It could not be shown to show off the differences between housing price/writing and the value of mortgages. The audience stressed in this regard that “the irregular action of the defendants did not exceed their powers, although it hindered internal control.”
Finally, as for the 41.3 million euros claimed for civil liability by Caixabank, the hearing considered that it did not correspond to the criminal process in which they were and that they should be claimed on another way.