Tecnotramit will enter into creditors' proceedings after a scandal for alleged undue withholding of funds

BarcelonaThe real estate company Tecnotramit, specializing in managing assets for large holders and investment funds, plans to enter bankruptcy proceedings next week, according to union sources. The company, which at the beginning of the year had a workforce of around 860 employees, communicated the new scenario to labor representatives this Tuesday. The situation has accelerated after it came to light in March that the company allegedly improperly withheld funds from individuals, leading to the withdrawal of its main clients, such as Banco Sabadell, CaixaBank, and Bankinter.

Now, the nearly 700 employees who still work at the real estate company are demanding that banking entities not turn their backs on them. In fact, as union voices explain to ARA, some of the clients were the ones who imposed schedules, shifts, or vacations on them. According to them, some entities even filtered the resumes of candidates that Tecnotramit wanted to hire. "The mismanagement falls on the management, not the workers; the entities should take charge of the staff," say the union representatives of the workforce, adding that it is "clear" that the entities were aware of the practices being carried out, as they underwent exhaustive audits periodically.

The scandal

Faced with this situation, the company's staff mobilized this morning to demand that banks assume "their social responsibility". "It is unacceptable that entities with record profits use us to produce and now throw us to the public funds of Fogasa [the state wage guarantee fund] so that it takes care of what they do not want to assume," said the general secretary of the CCOO union section at Tecnotramit, Dorian Ros. Ros added that customers "acted as employers to command", but that now "they are hiding".

The alleged undue retention of private funds would have worked as follows: when the management company received the provision of funds from clients, instead of paying the corresponding taxes and fees on behalf of the clients, it used them to grow its treasury. This meant that clients had to face fines or surcharges for not having paid money that they already considered paid. However, as company sources explain, once the scandal broke, the banking entities covered the generated shortfall.