The Giant of Private Health Quirónsalud prohibits its workers from doing private businesses with group suppliers if the amount deviates from market prices, an internal rule that calls into question the strange payment of 500,000 euros made by Isabel Díaz's couple Ayuso to the wife of a high position of this business group. The operation is being investigated as a possible bribery by a judge in Madrid. Fresenius, the German Quirón matrix, responds to El País that is closely following the judicial procedure, but has avoided answering a questionnaire about a case that has placed an uncomfortable focus on the company. «We are not subject to these investigations and, therefore, we request your understanding, since we cannot comment on it,» replies a spokesman. The judge believes that the company is possible harmed by the actions of the boyfriend of the Madrid president, Alberto González Amador, “in collusion” with that Executive of Quirón, Fernando Camino. The code of conduct and ethics of Quirónsalud collects a usual rule in the corporate world. The prohibition of private businesses with suppliers seeks to avoid treatment with these third companies. In exchange for a secret private transaction, those responsible for companies can hire these suppliers for an amount higher than the market or even pay them for a non -existent service. Experts in Economic Criminal Law indicate that these conflicts of interest may have criminal impact if they fit the criminal type of corruption in business, which punishes bribes in the business field. Sometimes, organizations ask their employees to inform the company about those private businesses to, if they are acceptable, give them their approval. «We cannot personally receive money, nor any other type of asset or economic or in kind, of patients, customers, suppliers, intermediaries, nor from any other part, not even as a loan, except if said transaction is carried out in the context of a transparent and legal commercial relationship carried out at market prices,» says article 4.11 of its code, called «anti -corruption.» third parties. «These can only be accepted when they fit social uses appropriate to the environment and only if each and every one of the conditions required in the specific anti -corruption policies established in the group are met and that basically establish that these gifts in no case can serve to influence a business decision, economic or that can report a benefit to any of the parties involved in that transaction.» With third parties: «We do not accept any improper benefit from our business partners,» he says. «We do not accept benefits that can influence our decisions or may seem to do.» No Fresenius or Quirón have answered this newspaper if Camino informed the company about their private businesses with Amador, if an internal investigation has been opened, if they are going to appear in the case or if they have continued to hire the companies of the Ayuso couple.
Deals with friends
The high position in question is Fernando Camino, President and General Director of Quirónprencia, a branch of the group that offers medical services for occupational risk prevention to more than 179,000 companies. Quirónprencia has hired Amador consultants, Maxwell Cremona SL and Masterman & Whitaker SL, to advise them on obtaining and maintaining their quality stamps, useful to show compliance with certain standards. This area of the Quirón Group is by far the main client of Amador and thanks to them, he has billed over the important amounts. The Amador case began in March last year as an investigation for fiscal fraud to the Ayuso couple, but took a turn at the beginning of last month, when the Judge of Instruction of 19 of Madrid, María Immaculate Iglesias, received green light to expand the focus to their business. In the center of the investigations there is a payment of 500,000 euros that made the wife of Camino, Gloria Carrasco. Amador paid that money in December 2020 for the company Círculo de Beauty SL, which barely had market value, according to the investigation made by the Treasury. More than information about suspicious payment appears to be a consideration for the good treatment of path to Amador. Sources of the case indicate that it can be their reason in the almost two million euros that Amador was pocketed in 2020 through intermediating in a sale of Chinese masks. Road appears in that operation as advisor to the buying company, the Galician Mape. But it may also be due to the usual consulting business between Maxwell and Quirón, a hardly quantifiable activity. It is striking that Amador invoiced Quirón in 2021 more than one million euros, but only paid 92,750 to the “external auditors/consultants” that he hired promptly for those tasks. The position of Amador's lawyers has paid this second hypothesis. On March 3, they sent a letter to the judge in which they contemplate the possibility that all the revenues of a loan from chirón are illicit. They warned that, if the investigation confirms that circumstance, it would be inadmissible to condemn Amador for tax fraud. To reach that seemingly favorable conclusion for their client, they cite the Supreme Court doctrine according to which “the income with criminal criminal origin should not give rise to their taxation.” Judge Iglesias has summoned Amador on Thursday, April 10 as investigated for corruption in business and unfair administration, in a car that considers that the health company “can be harmed” with those responsible for chirón -prevention ”. The judge adds: «Once this diligence is practiced, what is appropriate will be agreed.»The businessman Alberto González Amador leaves the Courts of Plaza de Castilla, on February 24, in Madrid.Gustavo Valiente / Europa Press (El País) jurists specialized in economic crimes say that companies try to regulate conflicts of interest to avoid possible harmful scenarios for the company, which may even lead to criminal sanctions for the company. Relationships with friends or family suppliers are particularly delicate. The director of Bonatti Compliance, Francisco Bonatti, explains that the casuistry is diverse and it can happen that the business reaches criminal relevance, which is only internally punished, or that it does not even deserve reproach. «The trend in the corporate world is to prohibit these acts, or at least force them to communicate them, because the natural thing is to look at these people with better eyes.»
«Chiron»
Quirón's silence contrasts with the storm around the company. The leftist opposition has been suggesting that the company benefits from the treatment provided by the Community of Madrid, which annually pays hundreds of millions for providing assistance in four hospitals managed by the company. During the Ayuso government, the debt of the Madrid Executive with Quirón has been reduced from 1,004 million to 455 million. Now, the opposition has risen the tone. More Madrid has nicknamed “the chiron” and both that party and the PSOE refer to his partner as “Alberto Quirón”, a nickname they have borrowed from the president of the president of the president, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, who registered it in his phone to Amador. A expert in reputational crisis management, Carles Mountain to business accounts. However, he is not surprised by his silence, taking into account that the business world in Spain is usually more hermetic than that of other countries around us. Consider that strategy has damages. «It is always interesting to give explanations,» he says. «When a company takes a step forward prevents others from directing the narrative.» Do you have something to tell? Write the author to fpeinado@BitcoinDynamic.es
