The open investigation into the environment of the former Minister of Finance Cristóbal Montoro has uncovered a transfer of appointments in senior management positions in the ministry and the Tax Agency. The office that Montoro founded has served to land his former positions in the public administration, from where they would continue to maintain relations and contact with the administration, according to the investigation.
Tarragona's number two investigative court has had investigative proceedings open since 2018 on the possible use of influence peddling between the office that Montoro founded and the Ministry of Finance when he ran it. What the magistrate is trying to find out, with the support of the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office, the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Civil Guard, is whether the Equipo Económico office made use of its relations with the highest positions in the ministry to achieve legislative reforms in favor of their clients and in exchange for "hidden commissions".
The firm's main partners are Martínez Rico as executive president and Salvador Ruiz Gallud and Manuel de Vicente-Tutor as managing partners. All of them have held positions in the Treasury and the Tax Agency, and then landed at Equipo Económico.
The first of them held the positions of director of the cabinet of the Secretary of State for Economy, and in 2000, that of director of Montoro's cabinet during the government of José María Aznar. From there they continued together as Secretary of State for Budgets and Expenditures, where he was until 2004, when the PSOE won the general elections with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Two years later he founded with Montoro, all of them already out of the Executive due to the change of president, the office Montoro y Asociados, which two years later was called Equipo Económico (EE), at which time Martínez Rico was appointed president Since 2015 the registered name is Global Afteli, although it continues to operate as Equipo Económico.
Just a few months earlier, it had been published in the media that the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office was investigating a contract awarded to this office by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce three years earlier, in 2012. That affair ended with a complaint from the Prosecutor's Office in 2017 that was presented to the Madrid courts. Ricardo Montoro, brother of the ex-minister, Martínez Rico, Vicente-Tutor and Salvador Ruiz appeared among the defendants in that affair, which ended up being filed.
The latter two, before becoming partners in the firm, also held senior positions in the administration. Ruiz, before landing at Equipo Económico in 2006, became director general of the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT), between 2001 and 2004, when Montoro was the highest responsible for the Treasury.
In the case of Vicente-Tutor, in addition to being a tax inspector on leave, he was chief of staff to the director general of the Tax Agency in the second legislature of José María Aznar. Its boss at the time was Martín Gallud. From the Tax Agency they went to the office. They stayed with the company, although Montoro returned to government with Mariano Rajoy when he came to power in 2011.
The contracts that are under judicial scrutiny begin a year after their previous partner returned to being the highest responsible for the Treasury. It follows from the investigation that EE would have been a kind of ramification of the Ministry itself. The companies would know and if they needed a favorable treatment from the Treasury that was the door to knock on, always according to police and judicial inquiries.
Legal sources explain that the key to this case is to know whether the Equipo Económico office engaged in influence peddling or simply acted as a lobby in a market where revolving doors are common.
For now, what is known is that some companies, specifically gas companies, included in the Association of Manufacturers of Industrial and Medicinal Gases (AGGIM), would have paid a cost well above the market for certain reports drawn up by US This overcharge would actually be the payment of "hidden commissions" to influence the Ministry of Finance at the highest level.
