What do two investigators from the Montoro case do at the Pujol trial?

MadridAfter three months of listening to witnesses, the trial against the Pujol Ferrusola family is immersed in the declarations of experts, who must shed light on the business dealings of the eldest son of the former president of the Generalitat. Two of those who appeared this Tuesday at the Audiencia Nacional were names that emerged in the media in July in the framework of the Montoro case: Francisco Piedras and Manuel de Vicente-Tutor. They are tax inspectors, they are managing partners of Equipo Económico – the firm founded by Cristóbal Montoro and which is at the epicenter of the alleged corruption scheme – and they are being investigated by the courts of Tarragona.

What were they doing in San Fernando de Henares? They have extensive experience and a long career as experts and were proposed as such by the defense of the businessman Josep Cornadó, who chaired Copisa and sits on the defendants' bench alongside the Pujols. Both prepared a report analyzing Copisa's operations with Jordi Pujol Ferrusola's two main companies between 2004 and 2009: "They are adjusted in form and the remuneration is in accordance with usual market practices," emphasized Vicente-Tutor. Their statement lasted almost half an hour and completely bolstered the defense's narrative for the eldest son, framing his role as an intermediary as normal.

"They are agents who intervene in the market with the sole objective of putting buyers and sellers in contact," summarized Francisco Piedras. Especially in cases where "there is no general and structured public information," which is when privileged information has more value. For example, in the real estate market, both for companies looking for land and for those that need to find a construction company. Likewise, Piedras made it clear that the information "is usually verbal" and "does not require any written, formal, or sophisticated elaboration." This is a point that Pujol's defense has maintained on multiple occasions during the trial and that the prosecutor has tried to question.

The response to the prosecutor

After the questions from Jorge Ayo, lawyer for Josep Cornadó, it was the prosecutor's turn, who conducted a two-and-a-half-minute interrogation. Two of the questions backfired on him and he came out scalded. Fernando Bermejo questioned whether it is possible for an intermediary to have "such extensive experience" to have "knowledge" in, among others, refining, engineering sectors, photovoltaic plants or real estate, which are the areas of some of the businesses that the firstborn facilitated. "The important thing is the agenda and, consequently, the knowledge of people and the business and industrial fabric. Technical knowledge is not necessary, but rather the knowledge of who the relevant players are in each sector," replied Manuel de Vicente-Tutor.

In the same way, he said that, even though they are "million-dollar figures" –as the prosecutor said–, it is "possible and probable" that there was no written contract if the participants had a "very relevant relationship of trust". Precisely, on one of the first days of the trial, the CEO of Copisa, Orlando de Porrata-Doria, justified that they did not have contracts with Jordi Pujol Ferrusola because he was "a person of trust".

That same day, the prosecutor was surprised by the commissions that the firstborn charged for mediating in the expansion of a refinery in Cartagena: "For a phone call they pay 199,000 euros in fees?" At that time, De Porrata-Doria justified that it was worth it because it was a contract of almost 36 million euros. And now Manuel de Vicente-Tutor has endorsed it: "The majority [of commercial agents] function simply with a single person and a telephone". This is because in 70% of cases they "do not have employees" or have "a single employee".