Lucia Salinas
08/17/2020 - 19:17
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Banco Nación, the main creditor of the Vicentin Group, once again claimed before the commercial judge Fabián Lorenzini that the company continues without presenting the 2019 balance sheet, suspecting that this could conceal some fraudulent maneuver in the handling of funds: that period includes the period in which Vicentin received credit aid from the Nation during Macrista administration. With criticism of the magistrate who handles the bankruptcy of the company, the Bank requested sanctions against the cereal giant "for each day of non-compliance."
Still devalued by his billionaire liability, Vicentin would cost about $ 700 million. Judge Lorenzini admitted 2,368 creditors for a global debt of 100,000 million pesos . The credits will be verified until August 25, after which the receivership will issue the report on the cereal company's liabilities.
In the framework of the competition, and after the intervention of the firm by the Alberto Fernández government, on June 19 Lorenzini decided that, due to the complexity of the company, it should be managed again by its owners. This turned into another measure: the interveners were reduced to controlling observers. The President reversed his decision to intervene in Vicentin and signed another DNU for it. Since February, the firm has been under the supervision of a commercial judge.
Sergio Nardelli, Vicentin's CEO, died of a heart attack last week.
While the contest progresses, Banco Nación once again complained to the magistrate that the Vicentin Group continues without presenting its latest accounting statement, corresponding to 2019, Its lawyers pointed out that "four months ago the bankrupt failed to comply" with the presentation of the required documentation .
In a peculiar way, the financial institution referred to this in the letter to which Clarín agreed. "The days continue to pass and, paraphrasing the popular saying, no one is the thief but the poncho still does not appear. The poncho, in our case, is the 2019 Balance of the bankrupt and all its attached documentation; as for the thief, continuing with the proverbial knowledge, to whom the coat fits, to put it on (we know who it fits and the overwhelming majority do the same).
The official financial entity recalled that Lorenzini himself had reported the inexistence of draft balance sheets and reports, something that the company's trustees were also requiring. The judge had determined that the bankrupt had to "proceed to the preparation of the balance of the report corresponding to the financial year closed on October 31, 2019 within a maximum period of 40 judicial business days under the warning of law."
In this regard, Banco Nación pointed out that Vicentin's attorney-in-fact - who explained that the required documentation was pending approval - was a "fallacy, since approval could not be pending in February 2020, which it is recognized that it did not exist in June 2020. "
The lawyers of the Nation criticized the actions of Judge Lorenzini, pointing out that the granting of a new term for the company "results in an undue benefit of the bankrupt and correlative damage for the group of creditors." They reiterated that Vicentin showed a "constant non-compliance" with the demands to deliver the documentation related to his last financial balance.
In their writing they rejected the 40-day period granted by the contest judge for Vicentin to present before the cause "what he should have contributed at the time of his first presentation or at the latest prior to decreeing the opening of the contest." For this reason, they requested that the cereal group "be applied with commanding, pecuniary and progressive sanctions of a quantitative entity comparable to the liabilities reported for each additional day of non-compliance that is verified in relation to the presentation of the 2019 Balance and all its related documentation and linked audit ".
Avellaneda, Santa Fe: banner against the expropriation of Vicentin, on June 20. Photo Juan José García
The Vicentin Group is also being investigated in federal jurisdiction for alleged fraud . There, Judge Julián Ercolini and Prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita are investigating the credits granted by Banco Nación to the Group, for 18,500 million pesos . Establishing a link with said investigation, the Nation maintains that the balance that was not delivered by the cereal firm corresponds "to the time period in which the bankrupt's patrimonial movements occur that should have been recorded, precisely, in the balance that does not appear" .