Greco Case: The "Lack of Uniformity" In the Defense of the Interests of the State
<p style="text-align:justify">This is how the AGN referred to the work of the dependencies that intervened in the cause of the group from Mendoza former owner of vineyards. The agency pointed out that "the deficiency" of controls by the Ministry of Economy, the Treasury Department and the SIGEN hampered the information needed to assess whether the State's alleged debt to the holding company, $ 618 million in bonds, is valid. However, the report noted that the methodology for calculating the amount of bonds "complied with current regulations."</p>
According to a "special examination" of the National Audit Office (AGN, for its acronym in Spanish), the judicial proceeding of the Greco case, the business group to which the State allegedly owes it $ 617,995,637, "shows the lack of uniformity in the strategy Applied" to defend public interests.
The Watchdog referred to the work of the various units that intervened in the case from the beginning of the 1980s to the present and affirmed that the Treasury Department, the Undersecretary of Justice and the Ministry of Economy did not interact with each other, but worked separately. This prevented the possibility of "maintaining in a coherent and uniform way the position of the State," in a case that has already been 29 years of existence.
The Greco Group is a holding company in Mendoza that owned Resero wines, Villavicencio mineral water and Banco de Los Andes, among others. In 1980, the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA, for its acronym in Spanish) decided to intervene the Bank of the Andes and requested its bankruptcy. The rest of Greco's companies ran the same fate. Two years later, the Group sued the State and the BCRA for damages, but these claims were rejected by the Procurator of the National Treasury. In 1987, already in democracy, the Procurement and Greco signed an agreement "to compose all existing conflicts," says the AGN. Then, the obligations originally agreed were modified: in 1989 the under secretariat of Justice was designated by decree as the enforcement authority of the agreement; This function was assumed in 1991 by the Ministry of Economy, which acquired "powers to finalize the existing negotiations"; December 28, 2001 - seven days after the fall of the government of Fernando De la Rúa - sentence is issued; And, finally, on August 11, 2005, the liquidation formed by the parties was approved, amounting to $ 332,396,128.64. Of this total, $ 205.2 million correspond to Vínicas Stock, and $ 127.1 million to Real Estate.
The Audit adds that, based on the information provided by the Public Debt Management Office (DADP, for its acronym in Spanish), the conversion of debt entailed the delivery to Greco of 332,577,357 bonds with a budgetary allocation, as of December 31, 2006, of $ 617,995,637.
"The legal and regulatory dispersion applicable to the case, and the changes of authorities in 30 years, hindered a related and comprehensive treatment of the conflict," says the AGN, and points out that in "no administrative or judicial procedure" The volume of wine involved, the origin of the stock, the ownership of the item, the quality of the product and its conservation status.
Other items of liquidation were the value of real estate included as assets to be reimbursed to the actors. In this sense, for the control body "it is significant to note that there is no record in the files (any) indicating a verification" to establish the origin of the recognition of the properties. The report adds that "it does not arise if any efforts were made to identify the up-to-date ownership of the real estate, or whether they were affected by the use of some of the parties to the conflict.
What did the units of the State do while the case was developed? The AGN says that the records sent by the Ministry of the Economy "do not respond to homogeneous parameters that allow to identify creditors, concept and origin of the debts", which prevents crossing that information with that contained in the judicial records.
With respect to a payment of $ 102 million that the State made to suppliers of the Greco Group, the Audit noted that, despite the fact that the General Office of the Nation (SIGEN, for its acronym in Spanish) "has been aware of the magnitude of the claim" It does not appear that it had established specific control procedures for the administrative or judicial actions related to the case. "
In the face of the AGN's consultations, the Procurator of the Treasury of the Nation "emphasizes that it was not up to him to control the judicial proceedings" of the case. But that body had direct intervention in the case until 1991, when the judicial defense was under the responsibility of the then Ministry of Economy, Works and Public Services. That is to say, the Procurement Office "had the necessary information regarding the complexity of the issues related to the Greco Group, the claims of the parties and the degree of conflict involved in the nature of the facts," the report explains.
The Audit completed its work, approved in November 2008, stating that, without considering whether the debt it intended to pay is valid or not, "the methodology used to calculate the amount of bonds to be delivered, was in compliance with current regulations."
