Inalsa has reported that the investigations carried out by the company regarding Ignacio Calatayud's attempt to charge the 82,000 euros he has claimed for an incident in the insolvency proceedings, alleging that these incidents were contracted separately from the entire Bankruptcy Proceeding, has revealed that "the lawyer appeared in at least six incidents without being formally designated to do so".
The 82,000 euros claimed by "the lawyer-friend of the former president and CEO of the water company, would be added to the 156,000 euros already collected, so Calatayud's fees, only in relation to the insolvency proceedings, would amount to almost a quarter of a million euros (238,000 euros)", the company points out
As will be recalled, the president of the Cabildo and CEO of Inalsa announced before the company's bodies, in January 2020, Calatayud's attempt to proceed with the signing of a transactional agreement with the UTE Edam-Janubio for the collection of a judgment favorable to the interests of the public company and his subsequent refusal to hand over the documentation related to his actions in the insolvency proceedings.
According to Inalsa, "that refusal of San Ginés' lawyer friend forced Inalsa to appoint new professionals whose efforts have revealed the existence of those six incidents in which Calatayud intervened representing the water company with the surprising result that, after consulting the archives, it has been verified that there is no contracting file, no designation and not even a budget from the lawyer to cover his presentation in those incidents, so it can be concluded that his hiring was verbal".
A "serious loss" to Inalsa
As already reported, the Board of Directors of Inalsa agreed, in its session of January 18, 2010, to appoint the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud Prats as legal advisor in everything related to the insolvency proceedings, "without approving either the conditions or the price of his services".
"As a result of that agreement, and without further formalities, Pedro San Ginés formalized on January 27, 2010 the acceptance of a budget from Calatayud that included the processing of the entire procedure until its completion, including all its phases and incidents, for an amount that was around 200,000 euros", Inalsa states.
Despite having paid a first invoice applying that contract, "which shows that it had entered into force, San Ginés insisted on considering that first budget as a mere draft and signed a new contract, on March 15, 2010, which caused a serious loss to Inalsa since not only were the future phases of the contest excluded from the contract, but the opportunity was also taken to exclude the insolvency incidents, all without any motivation or report", he adds.
Calatayud and San Ginés' "mistake"
The company explains that "the strategy of annulling the first contract and signing another to allow Calatayud to collect the incidents does not automatically mean that the lawyer was entitled to appear in the aforementioned incidents". "What was agreed is that, simply, the contract of March 15 was limited to the common phase, without including the remaining phases or the possible incidents of the aforementioned common phase, but it says nothing about the awarding of the same to Calatayud", they point out.
However, they add, "without any designation appearing in the Inalsa archives, Calatayud appeared, at least, in six of the more than twenty incidents that took place throughout the insolvency process, a circumstance of extreme seriousness since he has exercised the representation of the company without there being an express designation for it, being able to justify his action only in alleged verbal contracts".
"The slip of one of the three insolvency administrators"
Pedro Martín Toledo (who was one of the three members of the Inalsa Insolvency Administration who has ceased in his functions), in a private capacity and at the request of Ignacio Calatayud, signed a document that the lawyer submitted together with his claim for fees in which, as already indicated, "denies the existence of the initial contract for the entire insolvency (including the incidents) reducing it to the condition of a simple draft, despite having made payments against it that have been supervised, precisely, by the judicial intervention".
"But, in addition, in his eagerness to cover Calatayud, Pedro Martín Toledo goes so far as to affirm the existence of an agreement by which if the process was lost it would not cost Inalsa, and if it was won with costs, the payment (to Calatayud) would be assumed by the party condemned to pay the costs", the company emphasizes.