Barcelona Court of Appeal rules out prosecuting PDECat and JxCat for €6.6m plundered from Palau de la Música
Following a pronouncement by the Supreme Court, the court declares itself not competent to determine which is the successor of CDC
BarcelonaThe €6.6m that Fèlix Millet and Jordi Montull diverted from the Palau de la Música to Convergència (CDC) will not be returned to the institution and will be part of the sum of assets to be distributed among the political party's creditors, which continues its liquidation process in a commercial court of Barcelona. Before the beginning of this contest, Barcelona's High Court found the party guilty of illegally financing itself through commissions from construction company Ferrovial, which were disguised as donations to the Palau. The court ordered that this money be returned to the cultural institution and opened proceedings to determine whether PDECat or JxCat could be considered heirs of defunct parties and the conviction. Now the court has paralysed this procedure, a decision that implies stopping pursuing the two parties over the sentence of the Palau case.
In a resolution, section 10 of the Audiencia has declared itself not competent to continue with these proceedings, which had been paralysed while awaiting the bankruptcy process. The pronouncement comes after the Supreme Court gave preference to the commercial court that handles the bankruptcy CDC creditors. Based on this decision, the magistrates who issued the sentence of the Palau case conclude that "without prejudging whether there is indeed a successor character, the execution against the Catalan European Democratic Party and Junts per Catalunya cannot continue, due to lack of jurisdiction to declare the hypothetical succession. CDC is in insolvency proceedings and all present and future assets must be integrated into the mass of creditors".
During the investigation of the Palau case, Convergència deposited the former headquarters of the party in Barcelona as collateral to face possible seizures derived from a conviction in the Palau case, but later exchanged them for several properties in order to sell the building on Còrsega street. These properties, which the ruling established to be returned to the Palau de la Música to compensate the €6.6m plundered, are the ones that will now swell the list of assets to be distributed among the party's creditors, in the commercial process.
