The former president of Banco Popular Ángel Ron has asked the judge investigating the bankruptcy of the entity to file the case regarding him and directly points to Emilio Saracho as responsible for the resolution of the bank in July 2017. "Until the arrival of Saracho , Popular had never suffered a liquidity crisis, not even in the worst moments of the financial crisis”, he indicates.
In a letter to which La Vanguardia has had access, Ron's defense requests the head of the Central Court of Instruction number 4 of the National Court José Luis Calama to order the free dismissal given that "the bank, during the term of the Council chaired by Ron, comfortably complied with the regulatory ratios and the accounts reflected the true image of the entity”.
He defends that Banco Popular was "totally transparent" in the public information of the annual accounts, in the brochure of the 2016 capital increase and in the reserved information sent to supervisors.
His lawyer stresses that the 2016 capital increase prospectus repeatedly and adequately reported that "very significant" additional provisions were going to be made in the 2016 annual accounts, including provisions for foreclosed assets, and that high book losses.
"Consequently, investors had all the necessary information when deciding to go or not to the capital increase since they were aware that said provisions were going to be carried out," he points out.
As explained to the instructor, the public information described in the annual accounts already shows that the European Central Bank and the Bank of Spain "were fully aware" of the criteria applied by Banco Popular in the valuation of foreclosed assets. "All the reviews of an accounting nature carried out by third parties, both supervisors and auditors, have revealed that there were no provision deficits," he adds.
Ron tries to disassociate himself from the decisions adopted by other managers of the entity, with the exception of the approval of the capital increase of May 2016, "having no competence, knowledge or intervention in the rest of the issues that are investigated in these proceedings previous”.
For this reason, it considers that it cannot be held responsible for the rest of the issues, taking into account the doctrine of the National Court in other cases. Hence, he gives the example of the file of other bankers and presidents of other companies, for example, for the hiring of former Police Commissioner José Manuel Villarejo.
“My client was assigned functions in the bank's organization chart that depended on the trust in compliance by others -who act on the horizontal plane- of their own regulatory duties. In accordance with the principle of trust, in general, one is not responsible for the lack of care of others, but the right authorizes trust that others will fulfill their duties of care, responding only when there are special circumstances that should cause them to lose trust in the compliance with the duty of another, in which case the duty of one's own care is extended to cover the defect of care of others (or what is the same, the typically relevant risk margin is extended, without it being possible to deduce the responsibility of the Chairman for the the sole circumstance of occupying the first position in the hierarchical scale”, he emphasizes.
Calama investigates two phases of the Popular's resolution process: the alleged accounting irregularities of the entity in 2016, with the capital increase, and the press leaks a year later that would have led to its resolution in mid-2017.
