Repugn the Andorran justice

“On the ground, the reputational image of the Andorran bank, after the fictitious accusations against thousands of customers of the now defunct BPA”

With 13 open legal proceedings, following the fall of Banca Privadad’Andorra (BPA) for fictitious allegations of money laundering by the US authorities in 2015, the reputational image of the Andorran bank snoops beyond the borders of the Principality, while the affected clients do not remove their finger from the line to claim damages for the almost four years that their investments have been frozen.

Despite the false accusations, Andorran justice never acknowledged the vulnerability of the users and abuse carried out by some banking entities with their clients who were not respected their right to private property, under penalty of having FinCEN withdrew its accusation, without explaining what it was based on to launch it and then remove it.

With a contribution of 21% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 5% of jobs and a volume of assets that reaches 46 billion euros, until a few years ago the banking sector was boosted as the most important for the economy of the Principality (Principado), nevertheless, the catastrophe reached them: Andbank, Morabanc, VallBanc, BancSabadelld’Andorra and CrèditAndorrà, are in red numbers. The latter is going through its worst moment, winning only 25 million in 2018, half of what was expected.

And although last year they desperately made a “road-show” that toured Madrid, London, Paris and Frankfurt, to convey to the investment community that Andorra is no longer a tax haven and its banks compete with the same rules as Europeans, not it reached them to appease the financial tsunami that the same government of Antoni Martí provoked.

Certainly, Andorran banks were never prepared to face the challenge of the end of bank secrecy, while institutional clients outside Andorra have not yet understood the change in the financial system and prefer to entrust their savings with a Spanish or French bank. To the Andorran government “it backfired”.

For its part, the Cremades& Calvo Sotelooffice, continues claiming 366 million euros to the Government of Andorra for the intervention of BPA and the damage caused to 300 customers, derived from the false report of the consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) that accused them as suspects of money laundering, although curiously they were never investigated.

On their side, the Cierco brothers, majority shareholders of the defunct bank, opened the door to a new investigation on the economic policies of the Pyrenean country, due to a clear discrimination and arbitrariness in the takeover of BPA, and when it was known today that the Executive of the Principality (Principado) exerted pressure on the institutions in charge to verify the cleanliness of the operations of the entity, among them the regulator INAF.

While time continues its inexorable course, thousands of clients continue to be prevented by a mafia of politicians and corrupt authorities, to withdraw their money, which is already more than proven to be totally legal, facing a terrible obstacle: the great incompetence and concealment of the authorities Andorran financial institutions, such as the State Agency for Resolution of Banking Entities (AREB), headed by Albert Hinojosa Besolí, and the Financial Intelligence Unit of Andorra (UIFAND), headed by CarlesFiñana.