The Internal Revenue Service (SRI) paid an economic reparation of $6.8 million to Koval Management SA, a company contracted by the La Clementina Production and Marketing Cooperative, Cooproclem Owner Workers, for having overcharged this association during the sale of the largest banana farm in the country. Koval managed the La Clementina farm between 2014 and 2021.
“A measurement of the property was made with technology —between 2015 and 2018— and it was detected that the SRI had sold a little more than 11,000 hectares, but in reality the land had a little more than 10,000, that is, there were about 900 hectares. that did not exist”, explains Julio Cueva, Koval’s external lawyer.
This compensation, which has already been delivered by means of a credit note, was determined in a judicial resolution of the First Court of the Specialized Labor Chamber of the Provincial Court of Justice of Guayas, in May of this year. On that date, the appeal of the protection action filed by Cooproclem —which initiated the process and then ceded its rights to Koval— was accepted, the violation of the right to property was declared and the SRI was ordered to deliver the notice of credit to Koval.
The value of $6.8 million was calculated by the expert Diego Donoso, on March 16, based on the appraisal of the missing 990.4 hectares. Both Koval and the SRI had three days to present their observations to the expert report, but they did not do so within that period.
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The SRI, which did not comply with a request from this newspaper, requested weeks later, in April, the details of the form and the reasons that led to that amount, because it considered that it differs “excessively” from that required in the protection measure, which It is not detailed in the process. Given this, the expert responds that the compensation is “a consequence of the declaration of a violation of rights (…). What has been stated by the Internal Revenue Service is not applicable to the case, since it would be necessary to take as a reference the appraisal carried out in 2013 by the company Peritase SA, when I have prepared a commercial appraisal as of the current date on which will produce reparation.”
Koval claimed this reparation after —according to the lawyer Cueva— the La Clementina workers’ cooperative recognized an investment, the amount of which he did not specify, that the company had made during the years in which it managed the farm: “Koval made loans to obtain material , because every week you have to cut plants, take bananas, put inputs back, water (…); the raw material to make the land produce”.
The workers made an administrative claim before the SRI for the amounts overcharged, in February 2018, but the institution denied them, details Cueva, who adds that in response to this response they filed a legal action in July 2021, with which they obtained the ruling in favor, in May of this year.
The credit note is used —assures Cueva— to cross accounts and endorse someone specific at a lower price. In this case, the Koval firm made a “split of $1.5 million for a lawyer.” “The rest I couldn’t tell you (…). The SRI collected in cash and returned papers”, he notes.
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La Clementina, which stopped operating in August 2021, is currently seized by the National Financial Corporation (CFN), an institution that in 2013 granted a loan to workers associated with Cooproclem for $78.9 million. However, these resources have not been cancelled.
Despite the fact that the CFN has seized the farm, it could not have done this, because —according to Koval’s lawyer— “the owner is still Cooproclem. The embargo is a preventive measure.”
Until December 2021, the debt with the CFN totaled $74.3 million, resources that the state entity has not yet managed to recover. In the middle of this year, the possibility of auctioning off half of the land that is not dedicated to bananas was announced, but so far it has not materialized. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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