Canarian Legal Alliance would like to inform all of the clients of the current change with regard to the legal situation of Silverpoint Vacations SL. The company has presented, at the Mercantile Courts, a declaration of insolvency & provisional liquidation (Concurso de Acreedores), on the 15th of January 2020.
This does not mean they are declaring bankruptcy as such. Concurso de Acreedores is a legal situation in Spain that can be provoked voluntarily by the company or involuntarily by a creditor when a company is considered to have more creditors than assets.
This hasn’t come as a surprise to us, as we have been monitoring Silverpoint ́s moves very closely in the past couple of years. So much so that we have already reported the supposed illegalities for hiding their assets to avoid payments to the authorities, with an investigation already initiated by the state attorney. ( for more details: https://www.eldiario.es/canariasahora/tenerifeahora/tribunales/Fiscalia-venta-propiedades-timesharing-sur-Tenerife-turismo_0_950155565.html )
The first step taken by the Mercantile Court is to assign an external administrator. This administrator is obliged to send all the creditors notification of the situation and make an exhaustive report on its financial operation in the past years, which gives us a good chance to get more ammunition for our criminal claim against them.
This administrator can also discover serios irregularities not only around this liquidation but regarding the running of the company in the past years, and can declare the liquidation classified as “guilty” meaning that the administrator is responsible personally for it with his assets, and could even face jail time.
The basis of any Concurso de Acreedores is to try and pay all the creditors in order to clean the company’s financial situation and to try reflate a complicated situation whilst at the same time preparing it for future business. In most cases it is to prevent a company from having to declare bankruptcy. However, knowing the situation in depth, our legal team sees indications that the declarations that have been presented can be considered a fraudulent application for insolvency.
Aspects to highlight are:
· In the past year the company has sold assets (reported to the state attorney) and have restructured its organization so formal owners and administrators could be seen as not involved parties.
· It is clear that the company has not carried out any action of a “pre-insolvency” nature, in fact broke the law by not declaring this situation much earlier.
· And of course, the moment in which it is instigated coincides with the presentation of many provisional and firm enforcement of sentenced to recuperate funds from rulings against them.
· Since the first Supreme court rulings we can clearly see a decapitalization of monies which have subsequently been reported to the authorities.
Our lawyers and financial team are working closely on behalf of all the clients in order to prepare and present a claim contesting this declaration.
If proven that this voluntary declaration is of a fraudulent nature it would lead to its radical nullity, retroactivity of actions to today’s situation and in addition to other personal penal issues against the administrators.
However, the question that everyone is asking themselves is what does this mean for me?
First of all, all our clients regardless in what status their case is in, will be represented by us in this liquidation procedure as creditors to the company. CLA will be communicating all credits to the administrator.
For those clients who have rulings, the only aspect it affects is that the pay-out for the money is done once the judge decides if the declaration is accepted or not. If it’s accepted, then the assigned administrator will pay everyone on the creditor ́s list from the monies and assets. If it is not accepted, then we will be back to the same situation as today and you will receive your money through the courts once they have deposited the money, or through embargoes accounts, assets. This process usually takes between 18 to 24 months.
For those cases which are in progress at the courts, everything continues as normal and once the ruling comes in you will receive the money the same as those mentioned above.
For those who have presented claims recently, it will only affect the fact that the process will be transferred to the Mercantil courts instead of the ordinary Civil courts however the process remains the same.
For those whose case is not filed at the court will be filed directly at the Mercantile court in Santa Cruz but has the same procedure as the civil courts in Arona.
On the other side since a year we are already working on a broader, worldwide investigation where we are linking other companies and individuals in the group with assets in order to prove their involvement and asking the courts to rule that they are as responsible for the debts as well as Silverpoint itself. This is an extensive investigation work which will then be “translated” into legal terms to highlight the numerous illegalities, leading to potential civil or criminal proceedings. This process has already begun, and the first results delivered to the state attorney.
We have also started months ago studying the inclusion of Barclays and other lenders in the Spanish procedures and / or initiating cases against them in the UK. This could work for those clients who had loan arranged by Silverpoint. This has been also already started.
Our law firm is famous for being the one who makes the road where there was none before (see supreme court rulings) and there is no indication why this will not follow a similar path.
We can’t deny that this brings us further challenges, but we are prepared and ready to continue delivering the best service we can, even outside the court.
Therefore, please be assured that we continue to do everything in our power to make this process goes as smoothly and quickly as possible. Everyone in the company is working hard for your best interest and we will keep you posted throughout the whole process.
As a last note we would like to thank you for placing your trust in us, without you we could not have created legal history in Spain for the benefit of all misled consumers.