This Wednesday, Spain’s Supreme Court decided not to change the comma in a February ruling condemning Manuel Fernandez de Souza-Faro, former president of Pescanova, to six years in prison for crimes related to false annual reports, falsification of economic and financial information, and embezzlement of assets. The defendant filed an appeal to reduce the sentence to four years and nine months, which was denied.
“There is no room for clarification or correction of our verdict,” reads the decision, released this Wednesday in several Spanish media outlets. Sousa-Faro’s imprisonment was suspended pending clarification from the justice of the neighboring country. The only option for the accused is now European justice.
This seems to be the end point in the history of one of the most notorious bankruptcies in Spain. On February 28, it was 10 years since this Galician-born multinational company defaulted with debts of over 3.5 billion euros. This will be the largest non-property bankruptcy in Spanish history. Former President Peskanov was also sentenced to to compensate affected investors for more than 125 million euros.
However, the company eventually found new life with Nueva Pescanova, created in 2015. According to the Jornal de Negócios, it now has a turnover of more than one billion euros, and since 2020 it has been the largest shareholder in Nueva Pescanova is Abanca. , with 93% equity, having invested 70 million euros in the company in January this year.