The Cabildo of Lanzarote informs that "a report from the legal services requested by the president Oswaldo Betancort, certifies that the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud has not unduly or fraudulently collected any fees from Inalsa in the judicial procedure of the public company's creditors' meeting".
“Faced with the constant manipulation and lies of the PSOE”, says Oswaldo Betancort, “this report makes it clear that no action should be taken by the Cabildo or Inalsa to claim any undue collection from said lawyer”.
The socialist group requested, in the plenary session of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, held last Tuesday, to transfer to the company Inalsa the request to initiate actions to claim from the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud the costs collected, protected by a judicial resolution that, according to the socialist spokesperson, Ariagona González, condemned him to pay the judicial costs.
From the Cabildo they point out that after obtaining the judicial resolution, to which the PSOE referred in its motion, "the report from the legal services clarifies that the Commercial Court that condemned the UTE Edam Janubio to pay the costs, and that there is no judicial resolution that agrees to the return of the fees collected by the lawyer Calatayud or that condemns him to pay the costs".
After the mandate of the plenary, the government group has found that, as the Councilor for Water Domingo Cejas stated in the plenary, the documentation of said procedure was in the possession of the lawyer appointed by the previous president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, María Dolores Corujo, in 2021, without having transferred the procedure in its entirety to date.
“A matter settled administratively and judicially”
The Nationalist Group in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, through its spokesperson, Samuel Martín, describes the PSOE's action as a “false strategy by provoking an agreement that, although without transcendence or executive force, has served to resume a matter that is being settled administratively and judicially”
In this sense, the report from the legal services indicates that the courts of justice had already confirmed the legality of the collections made by the lawyer Ignacio Calatayud, so there is no misappropriation or obligation to return any amount.
Samuel Martín denounces “the PSOE's manipulation with a motion full of lies, slander and inventions that have already been denied by several firm judicial resolutions”.
According to explanations from the Cabildo, "the report details that the decree of the judicial secretary of the Commercial Court No. 1 (to which the socialists' motion refers), as well as the Order of November 15, 2024, issued by the Court of Instruction No. 4, which definitively dismissed the case against Calatayud, make it clear that the payments received by the lawyer were legal, derived from convictions in costs, agreed with the losing parties and paid directly by them, without any invoice having been charged to Inalsa or the Consortium".
Specifically, the order of November 15, 2024 issued by the Court of Instruction number 4 in Proceedings 579/2016 expressly states:
“Regarding the crimes investigated against Mr. Calatayud, related to a possible misappropriation, for the collection of his fees, in terms of their amount and the way of collecting them, (by the investigated Ignacio Calatayud Prats and his company Ignacio Calatayud Prats SL), it should be noted that regarding the amount of the same, the fee budget for the common phase of the contest was supervised and accepted by the Bankruptcy Administration (86,000 euros, budget dated March 15, 2010), with the bankruptcy incidents remaining outside said budget, so that if they occurred, they would be charged separately, agreeing that he would only collect the costs of the bankruptcy incidents, if there was an express conviction in costs, which is really what happened in the present case, resulting in no invoice having been charged to INALSA or the Consortium for the incidents, but rather the amounts in these concepts were paid directly by the entities that lost the lawsuit, since they were condemned to pay the costs, resulting in said amounts being agreed transactionally with the private entities that lost the lawsuit with conviction in costs, they were also judicially approved and were definitively paid directly to the investigated party in his bank account, in accordance with the prior agreement indicated in their statements by those involved and according to agreement with the Bankruptcy Administration”.
In the opinion of the nationalist group, this is a “crude political maneuver without legal basis, with the sole objective of maintaining a strategy of defamation”. It should be remembered, according to the nationalist group, that the PSOE already tried to appear in the corresponding judicial procedure and the Court of Instruction number 4 expressly rejected it to avoid “spurious, fraudulent or dilatory interests”, citing a firm order of November 21, 2024.
In addition, they recall that neither the Cabildo, nor the Water Consortium, nor Inalsa can reopen a matter definitively archived by different judicial instances.
Samuel Martín demands "an immediate rectification from the PSOE and the end of the political and legal poisoning campaign. Furthermore, he warns that they will not allow public institutions to be used to give veracity to what is nothing more than a covert defamation operation disguised as an institutional motion".
