News of Spain
National Commission Markets and Competition (CNMC) has opened a file sanctioning the Bar of Barcelona and eight other law schools of the state, including Valencia and Seville, to advise the law a court fees too high in demands by IPO of Bankia .
According to the calculations of the bank, Bankia would have paid about 150 million more in legal costs for these claims, as stated in the competition dossier.
The initial complaint was lodged by Bankia to CNMC considering that the costs that laded lawyers for a demands were “clonic” , and therefore had little work to lawyers, were too high.
The presiding body José María Marín Quemada , after receiving the complaint, an investigation was initiated and concluded that it could have prohibited conduct Act Antitrust . However, the agency warns that the record does not prejudge the outcome and now a period of 18 months for the investigation of the case and its resolution is opened.
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the widespread practice among lawyers who have been specializing in these demands for the IPO of Bankia, was to offer customers services for free and leaving as compensation for lawyers the court costs. Should you win, court costs-which has cost the process- the Bankia paid and lawyer meanwhile stayed, while the affected recovering the money invested in the IPO.
The problem is that lawyers Competition, in many cases, the costs calculated based on the criteria set by the Bar Association. Therefore, the record of Competition has not been open to lawyers or law firms, but against professional corporations.
Specifically, Competition stresses that schools that has opened the file “should applied overruns in the process of Bankia doing price recommendations “. These recommendations were made, for example, with the development and publication of guidance for the purposes of taxation of costs criteria without regard to, among other things, the existence of identical mass lawsuits or similar between them.
The reasoning of competition is that the legal costs “can not be equal to a single lawsuit by a large set of repetitive lawsuits, almost photocopied, in which only needs to be changed the name and ID of the applicant in an established form, “say sources CNMC.
the file has been opened at the Bar Association of Barcelona and Valencia, Avila, La Rioja, Bizkaia, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Albacete, A Coruña and Seville. However, competition does not rule out that during the investigation can be extended to any other law school and even Lagun buffet, although the latter possibility is quite difficult because professional firms protect them, precisely that followed the recommendations of the College, according to sources of competition.
court costs have been an added bill for Bankia in the cost of the IPO. In fact, in February Bankia after the Supreme Court give the reason small investors, the company decided to small investors the money they had caught with the IPO . Roughly about 1,600 million euros that were already provisioned. At that time the bank has already said that money back would save between 400 and 500 million euros from court costs and lawyers fees.
Source Ara.cat
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