Reply #10: Santander chief guilty of ‘false accusation’

[Demeter]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/464f1a8e-f3ed-11de-ac55-00144...

A Spanish court has found the chief executive of Santander, Spain’s largest bank, guilty of “false accusation” in a private criminal case that began 15 years ago.

In a ruling published on Monday, judges of the provincial court of Barcelona found Alfredo Sáenz and two former colleagues guilty of charges stemming from the collapse of Banesto, the Spanish lender rescued by the Bank of Spain in late 1993 and taken over a year later by Santander.

...Efe, the Spanish state news agency, reported on Monday that Mr Sáenz was sentenced to six months in jail – which under Spanish law he is unlikely to serve – and fined €9,000. He and his co-accused were also ordered to pay one of the plaintiffs €100,000 in damages, and the other three a symbolic €1 apiece.

Banesto said it would appeal against the decision.

According to Banesto, the ruling stems from a series of lawsuits filed against the bank’s debtors as part of efforts to recover bad loans as it sank into insolvency in 1993. As the result of one such action, a group of businessmen were held provisionally in jail for allegedly concealing assets.

The businessmen and a Banesto board member sued Mr Sáenz as head of Banesto, along with another executive and the bank’s lawyer at the time, for false accusation, giving false evidence and bribery.

Most of the claims in the suit had been ruled inadmissible or shelved during a decade of verdicts and appeals in various courts, according to Banesto....