Three judges are dismissed for “inexcusable error” in a coercive legal process between the CFN and the company JIK SA

The National Financial Corporation (CFN) reported this Tuesday that three judges were dismissed by the Judicial Council (CJ) for how they acted in a coercive collection process for debts between the state entity and the company JIK SA

This, after the Council of the Judiciary accepted the reasoned report, issued by Katherine Calderón Álvarez, Guayas Provincial Director of the CJ in the Disciplinary Field, on October 3, 2022. This process already had a first resolution, on July 20 of 2022, in charge of the Constitutional Court (CC), whose plenary session ruled unanimously in favor of the state bank and asked the CJ to open an administrative summary to review the actions of the judges.

Constitutional Court rules in favor of the CFN in the JIK SA case and asks to review the performance of judges

Now, through the Disciplinary File MOTP-0632-SNCD-2022-JS, on January 7, the Judiciary formalized the dismissal of Adolfo Gaibor Gaibor, Carlos González Abad and José Coellar Punín, who served as judges of the Specialized Chamber of Criminal, Military Criminal, Police Criminal and Traffic of the Provincial Court of Justice of Guayas, sanctioned for being found responsible for having acted with an inexcusable error by accepting a protection action with constitutional precautionary measures presented by the company in 2020, which it allowed the extinction of the debt, through a dation in payment.

Before, at the end of 2019, the CFN had issued a collection order to JIK SA, for a total of $5.5 million, due to overdue values, which by then were 272 days past due.

The judges of lower instances ordered that the CFN had to accept the assets delivered in dation, which gave rise to their claim before the CC, through an extraordinary protection action.

According to the Court’s ruling, the judges who had ruled in favor of the company “distorted the protection action, having issued a reparation measure that extinguished an obligation of a contractual nature”, which should have been resolved in the ordinary way.

Guayas Prosecutor’s Office filed a criminal complaint against the National Financial Corporation for a dispute with a debtor company

The CFN gave the company the loan in 2010 to build an ozonated water treatment plant for industrial use. However, in August 2012 he requested an extension of the amortization table, in April 2013 he requested a novation, in September 2014 he was given the first term extension of that novation and in August 2015 the second extension.

To cover the debt, the company offered a piece of land of more than 13 hectares, which was not accepted by the CFN, alleging that it harmed its interests.

Meanwhile, on July 6, 2022, Fabián Pozo, legal secretary of the Presidency, presented a amicus curiae pointing out that if JIK SA’s approach is accepted, “a disastrous precedent” would be established.

“It is absolutely clear that the plaintiff company was seeking the declaration of a right, which consisted of being accepted -without further ado- an extraordinary payment measure (…) the imposition of an action that is clearly detrimental of the activity of the CFN and of the legal right to protect, which is public money (SIC)”, he indicated in the document. (YO)