Spain central bank ex-chief charged over banking scandal

MADRID: The former head of Spain’s central bank was charged on Monday for allowing the troubled Bankia bank to list on the stock exchange in 2011, despite alleged “repeated warnings... that the group was unviable.”

Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez, in charge of the central bank from 2006 to 2012, was charged over a failed listing that saw small investors lose millions of euros in investment, as was the former president of Spain’s CNMV market regulator Julio Segura, a court order revealed.

Bankia was bailed out in May 2012, less than a year after its listing, and is accused of misrepresenting its accounts ahead of the flotation.

Rodrigo Rato, a former economy minister and ex-International Monetary Fund chief who headed up Bankia at the time of its listing, has also been charged over the scandal.

On Monday, Spain’s top-level National Court said it had ordered the investigating magistrate to charge Fernandez Ordonez, Segura and six other central bank and CNMV officials at the time — an order it insisted was final and could not be appealed.

But it is as yet unclear exactly what the charges are.

Published in Dawn February 14th, 2017