The dispute over Casa de Galicia is played out on several fronts and the coming weeks will be decisive in the future of the mutual company liquidated by judicial decision.
After a law was approved practically unanimously in Parliament – the nationalists Juan Straneo and Sergio Botana voted against it and the PERI deputy, César Vega, abstained – paved the way for the trustee who manages the mutual company to request its liquidation. Judge Leonardo Méndez granted that request on February 24. Currently, the trustee is working on a concrete plan to be able to call interested parties.
This law consists mainly of three parts: one in which they facilitate the liquidation of the mutual and two others where they determine the mechanisms to distribute to partners and employees. In the case of partners, it was arranged that according to their ID number they be distributed among Cudam, Evangelical Hospital, Catholic Circle and Universal.
that decision motivated the appeal of unconstitutionality that the Court is studying by 600 partners, sponsored by Juan Ceretta. They argued that limiting the possibility of choosing their new mutual member violates the principles of freedom and equality. They also seek to annul the articles that facilitated their liquidation, but there their hopes diminish because in order to make these types of claims they have to be a directly affected party.
Although the study of the unconstitutionality can take up to a year, the Court has to decide on the precautionary measures that they requested, that is, that the application of the law be suspended and therefore the liquidation of the mutual company. The partners will have lost it there.
Ceretta said to The Observer that although there is no deadline for them to pronounce on the measures, due to the urgency of the matter, he understands that they will do so in the coming weeks.
On the other hand, several appeals are pending at the Insolvency Court level. On the one hand, the Court of Appeals is still studying whether or not to ratify the judge’s decision to resolve the cessation of activities of Casa de Galicia. The measure is appealable, but it has a peculiarity: it does not have a suspensive effect. That is to say, while the court of appeals analyzes the origin, the assets of Casa de Galicia will be sold.
On February 24 – with the law already in force – the syndicate and the Ministry of Public Health appeared and the ministry presented as new facts that all permits to operate had been revoked from the mutual society. There the liquidation was decreed.
At the same time, the judge received two exception appeals for unconstitutionality. Méndez ruled them out for formal reasons, reported La Diaria and confirmed The Observer.
One of them was presented by the lawyer Lucía Curbelo, representative of Casa de Galicia. The judge understood that she no longer has jurisdiction because the directive of Casa de Galicia (sponsored by Curbelo), was displaced by the MSP. Curbelo appealed this decision and the court will decide the matter. In her appeal, she argued that once the law was approved, the rules of the game were modified in full cause and that hinders due process.
On the other hand, they understand that the trustee made a “abusive use of the legal powers of the Receivershipsince it does not have the power to revoke a power of attorney granted 11 years ago by legitimate authorities and not by those displaced from Casa de Galicia”.
They also filed a complaint appeal for denial of unconstitutionality and a complaint appeal for denial of appeal, which is pending resolution.
At the same time, in the middle of this week a group of 1,603 members (other than those represented by Ceretta) filed a new appealconfirmed sources of the cause to The Observer. Judge Méndez must certify that all the signatories are indeed partners, and will decide whether they have a direct interest in the case. It will be the appeals court that determines if they should be represented.
The mutual company will continue to operate until March 31 and until that day the salary payments are confirmed, said the Minister of Labor, Pablo Mieres. “We don’t know what will happen next,” said Fernanda Oseiro, a worker at Casa de Galicia on Radio Centenario. Prior to the sale, the mutual insurance company will continue to be financed with what it generates from the leasing of services to private mutual insurance companies. Galician House it had a structure to serve 100,000 members and closed with 47,500.
Oseiro questioned that three times they asked the president, Luis Lacalle Pou, for meetings. “The only thing we receive is silence… We see that the president travels to other countries to look for investors and this is an investor who comes to knock on our door and we do not want to receive him,” he said, referring to the Spanish group Ribera Salud that delivered a letter in the Presidency saying that he was willing to take charge of the mutualist company and settle its debts.
