The Government will have to report the list of guarantees granted to the ICO to companies to mitigate the impacts derived from the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine whose reimbursement the beneficiaries have been required for breach of the conditions. Specifically, it must detail the importation of the operation, the money claimed and whether the funds have already been recovered or are in the claim phase, as estimated by the Council for Transparency and Good Governance (CTBG).
According to the CTBG resolution, consulted by La Información, on April 26, 2022, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation was asked, in addition to said information, for the identity of the affected companies. The Official Credit Institute (ICO), attached to the portfolio directed by Nadia Calviño, rejected the petition, justifying itself in the “alleged prejudice to economic and commercial interests and the duty of confidentiality”, as stated in the claim filed with Transparency.
For its part, on June 22, 2022, the CTBG forwarded the file to Economía so that it could make the allegations it deemed appropriate. “In the case at hand, and without the need for the affected third parties to make allegations against the disclosure of their data, it is clear that making public the non-payment of the line of credit and its importation could call into question their professional solvency and economically, damaging its reputation and in many cases the commercialization of its services, as well as its ability to obtain credit in the future and to maintain and expand its contractual activity,” argued the public entity.
The ICO defended that, if said information is made public, the competitors of the companies that have been required to return the guarantees would have “strategic information” that they could use not only in their favor, but also against those affected. , “going to the detriment of its competitiveness and weakening its position in the market”. The information on the operations guaranteed under Royal Decree-Law 8/2020 and Royal Decree-Law 25/2020 is actively advertised in the national database of subsidies, which details the date of grant, the amount, instrument and amount of equivalent aid per beneficiary.
ICO Explanations
It is the financial institutions (and not the ICO) who analyze the eligibility conditions and grant the guaranteed operation in accordance with their risk policies and internal admission procedures. The revocations or invalidations of guarantees in many cases are carried out before the communication of non-payments, so there are no refunds, since the guarantee has not been executed.
As explained by the ICO, the possible revocations or invalidations of the guarantee can occur for various reasons: withdrawal of the parties, in the loading and data errors of the operations by financial institutions, non-payment of the cost of the guarantee, etc. They can also be given for non-compliance with the eligibility conditions according to the regulations of covid guarantee lines. “This revocation may also be due to non-compliance with the general regulations on subsidies or other causes, such as the judicial or administrative disqualification of the borrower from receiving subsidies and that could reveal other supervisory bodies other than the ICO”, mat subiza elo organism is possible “neither obtain, nor elaborate, nor publish the requested information”.
The ICO requested that the petition filed be dismissed, but the CTBG has only partially responded to its petition. Transparency considers “unquestionable” and “undoubted” the public interest in the list of ICO guarantees granted to companies due to the pandemic whose reimbursement has been required, “to the extent that it contributes to knowing how very significant amounts of public funds are managed”. . However, he believes that the disclosure of the complete list of companies that have failed to comply with their financing obligations would be “clearly disproportionate”.
“Knowing the amounts of the guarantees whose execution has been requested and their status, the public interest in knowing the complete list of the affected companies presents a lesser entity that, in the necessary weighting, prevents it from prevailing over the certain damage and objective that its disclosure would cause. Consequently, the claim must be dismissed at this point,” he argues.
The ICO-guaranteed lines of credit set up to guarantee financing for Spanish companies and self-employed workers affected by the economic effects of the coronavirus have deployed guarantees for imports of 107,102 million euros, which in turn have allowed the mobilization of 2 euros 140.6 per Spanish productive fabric. According to the latest data available from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the liquidity and investment guarantee lines have financed more than 750,000 companies, the self-employed and SMEs through 1.19 million operations, of which 98% have been subscribed and self-employed .
Royal Decree-Law 8/2020, of March 17, established a line of State guarantees of up to Subsequently, Royal Decree-Law 25/2020, of July 3, gave the green light to another line of guarantees of 40,000 million euros, focused on covering financing for current and capital expenses related to new investments or to the production and service process, the expansion, adaptation or renewal of equipment, facilities and capacities and the expenses associated with restarting the activity .
The Government has also extended until December 31, 2023 the line of guarantees included in the Response Plan to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has an endowment of 10,000 million euros. Sources from the Ministry of Economic Affairs assure this medium that the Executive’s idea is to publish a report per quarter once the guarantee programs are closed.
