Power slips from Pinochet cronies as Chile's lithium giant revamps board
Power slips from Pinochet cronies as Chile's lithium giant revamps board
Wed Apr 22, 2015 8:10pm EDT
By Rosalba O'Brien and Felipe Iturrieta
SANTIAGO, April 22 (Reuters) - Chile's SQM, the world's biggest producer of key battery ingredient lithium, will get a new board on Friday minus the man who has led it for nearly three decades, as the scandal-plagued company moves to reassure investors about its corporate governance.
SQM , also an important supplier of iodine and other chemicals, was privatized in the 1980s under then-dictator Augusto Pinochet. His son-in-law at the time, Julio Ponce, bought up stakes that made him a billionaire and chairman of the company.
But shortly after an insider-trading probe last year that saw Ponce and others fined, the company has become mired in a fresh scandal over illicit campaign financing, largely of Pinochet's right-wing party the UDI.
The scandal has convulsed the political and business elite in Chile and already claimed the scalp of Patricio Contesse, SQM's chief executive, who was fired last month for refusing to cooperate with authorities.
More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/23/chile-scandal-sqm-idUSL1N0XJ3DB20150423?rpc=401
[center]
Julio Ponce[/center]
Wikipedia:
Julio Ponce Lerou is a Chilean billionaire who is the principal shareholder of Soquimich.[1] He is a former son-in-law of Augusto Pinochet.[1][2] Until 1982 he was president of Chilean state-owned forestry company Complejo Forestal y Maderero Panguipulli while he was simultaneously president of CELCO, a wood pulp company.[2]
Ponce is currently accused of a millionaire fraud and embezzlement that affects the pension funds of millions of Chilean citizens under what is known as the "Cascadas" case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Ponce_Lerou
[center]
Veronica Pinochet, ex-wife of Julio Ponce.
Pinochet, shaking hands with Henry Kissinger. [/center]
= new reply since forum marked as read
