The Granada Provincial Audience, in a strikingly similar case to the misleading Equity Release cases, found that 2 businessmen were criminally guilty of misleading publicity and were served with a criminal conviction, albeit no one spent time inside.
The Court found that:
- 2 Granada businessmen offered an course named “Bachelor in Tourist Business Administration”, indicating that it was sponsored by the University of Hertfordshire and that, on conclusion of the course, they would be homologated by the said University.
- Lured by this information, a few dozens of students signed contracts on that understanding.
- At the middle of the course, a number of students started to doubt the information provided by the businessmen as a result of which, they wrote to the University of Hertforshire for confirmation of the promised homologation.
- A few days later, the British University wrote back denying there was any collaboration agreement with the 2 gentlemen running the dubious course.
The criminal conviction also secured a civil liability pronouncement, as a result of the theory of responsibility “ex delicto” which says that, if a criminal wrong causes monetary damages, the Criminal Court is entitled to award damages to the claimant.
In this case, the defendants were obliged to reimburse the cost of the spurious course.
This is a very interesting ruling and perhaps can give some hope to those victims of Nordea Bank SA Luxembourg who are under threat of having their homes reposessed. I presume that as the Granada Court has deemed that this type of mis-leading publicity is criminal, this ruling or even simply having the Mercantile Court in Malaga admit the writ into court will be sufficient to get a stay on the reposession and auction of properties.
Seems like all the courts in Europe are now getting to grips with all these mis-selling schemes. The UK and FSA are leading the way. Landsbanki in France are going through the mill and now Spain are close behind. I have a feeling that 2013 will be the year where many of these frauds will finally come before the courts in Spain.
I think one of the most important issues to come out of this is that the criminal conviction secured a civil liability procurement and the criminal court were able to award damages to the claimants. In the past I understood that even if a criminal conviction ensued, it would then have been normal for the case to be referred back to the civil court who then examine the damage aspect. Good news indeed for all the vicitims, especially those that have taken Nordea Bank Luxembourg to the Mercantile Court in Malaga. If indeed the court find on behalf of the claimants then they could be out of the woods very soon.