Ana Botín testifies at the National Court for the purchase of Banco Popular for 1 euro

The president of Banco Santander,

, testifies this Thursday in person before the National Court in the framework of the case that investigates the last two management teams of Banco Popular, including its former presidents

and

.

The appearance will focus on the details of the Popular purchase process, an entity that after its resolution at the request of the European Single Resolution Board (JUR) on June 7, 2017 was acquired by Santander at a symbolic price.

In a press conference held that same day,

to the Spanish financial sector, and defended that it was "the best option to give continuity to such an important entity" as Popular.

His statement comes a week after that of the former Minister of Economy and current Vice President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Luis de Guindos, who in his interrogation explained that between January and June 2017 he held talks with the presidents of the five large Spanish banks , among them, Santander.

He also acknowledged that in a conversation with Botín, she told him that they had seen the Banco Popular accounts and had decided not to make an offer;

Furthermore, he informed her that he had a negative net worth.

An extreme that,

admitted

was corroborated by the rest of the entities, and that is that nobody wanted to buy the bank.

Given this situation, he continued,

, and the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (FROB) contacted some of the entities that had already analyzed Popular in the previous weeks to inform them that they were going to initiate a procedure resolution.

In the opinion of the vice president of the ECB, if Santander had not entered, the Popular offices would not have been able to open because there was no money in the box and all liquidity lines were exhausted.

The case began in October 2017, with the admission for processing of

of Popular, Ángel Ron and Emilio Saracho, their respective boards of directors, the audit partner of the accounts and the firm PwC, for various crimes corporate.

Two separate pieces were then opened, the first that investigates Ron's team for the capital increase of 2,500 million euros that the entity undertook in 2016, and a second on the 108 days of Saracho's mandate, which focuses on a possible The crime of manipulating the market with false news to make the price fall.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

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