The most influential Spanish online news site, El Confidencial has written a damning article about the dubious practices of Jyske Bank Gibraltar, in Spain.
The piece, clearly inspired -and acknowledged twice- by a post published on ERVA, questions the activities of Jyske Bank Gibraltar in Spain and reminds that the bank was recently fined 1,7 million Euros for refusing to disclose sensitive information demanded by Spanish authorities pursuant to anti-money laundering legislation.
The article considers Jyske Bank to be “suspicious” of acting in breach of Spanish tax and anti-money laundering provisions, just what Switzerland was accused of doing for years, but on a worldwide basis (only to finally budge under very serious pressure from the U.S.).
Interesting to see that the ERVA web site is read by such newspapers, it makes one think, who else is accessing all the information from this site. It is also interesting to read all the comments on the Spanish newspaper web site. Do so, if you have the chance, the translation by Google is not bad. What staggers me is the potential amount of tax defrauded from the Spanish Tax Authorities, not only via Gibraltar, which is miniscule to the tax defrauded via Luxembourg. We have to remind ourselves and others that banks operating out of Luxembourg are inciting people to defraud the Spanish Government with equity release schemes, designed in Luxembourg and sold in Spain through non regulated IFA’s and the like. Nordea Bank and Danske Bank being the two major Luxembourg players. In both instances it has been demonstrated on this web site that both these banks have sold equity release products and told ( backed up in writing) their victims that by entering into such a scheme will mitigate both Wealth & IHT. This we now know just is not true, as the Spanish Tax Office has stated that this is regarded as tax fraud ( The Tax ruling was published on this site) I think I read on this site that there could be over 1,000 victims conned by these banks The potential tax losses could amount to hundreds of millions of Euro. Now that is a lot of money and worth investigating by the Spanish Press and the Tax Office.
Do you really think that the Spanish have the guts to investigate these schemes. Personally I think not. The Spanish Government could not care less what they are losing. Why do you think they are in the state they are in to day. Talk about the Manana attitude, no one has the guts to take these banks on. If they do, the legal system does not have the experience to see these through. They would rather put the case to some other court or claim they do not have jurisdiction to try the case. Perhaps you cannot blame the judges, some of which have just left university to take up the post of judge and are there for the ride not the hassle. This coupled with the fact that the defendant (bank) if brought to the court can lie (quite legally) to the court and there is nothing you can do about it. Is it not time that some of these cases should be “fast tracked” through the courts, before the poor elderly victims die of worry.
oh dear, that sounds ominous for all those people who are waiting to get their equity release scams reversed by the courts. Is there still some hope left?
We still have to look on the positive side. Whilst we know the Spanish Legal System is somewhat slow, there have been some remarkable positive judgements against banks recently, most of which have been in the Provincial and Supreme Courts. As you know the wheels turn a little slowly in Spain. Having said this it is important that you get all your facts and evidence together, before filing proceedings in the courts. You only get one shot at it. Currently Lawbird legal Services have two cases lodged at the Mercantile Court, Malaga. The first to be heard will be against Nordea Bank where a pre hearing has been set for the middle October, a trial date should follow within a couple of months. This action is on behalf of several victims for fraudulent and misleading advertising and if successful can result in the contracts being “null & void”. A further case has been filed, in the same court against Rothschild again this is a multiple action. In addition Lawbird has filed a motion in two courts to have the mortgage loan ” null & void” as the contracts were entered into for the purpose of evading taxes (Wealth & IHT) We are not sure if other lawyers have issued proceedings against any other entity, but would assume so. It seems to us that, many of these cases should be coming before the courts within the next few months. So here’s hoping for some positive results.
Re the last comment, does that mean that should a lawyer not prepare his client’s case sufficiently well, and if fail, the client could not engage another lawyer to resubmit a better prepared one ?