New Business – The disappeared millions

The prosecutor in the New Business case requested in the substantive hearing the maximum sentence for the defendants and the confiscation of the money deposited in the bank accounts linked to a few involved. In some of these accounts, by the way, only a few dollars remain; surely they were emptied to avoid, precisely, the expropriation of money. If the expropriation of these diverted funds is aimed at compensating the State for the purchase of Editora Panamá América, SA (Epasa), it seems that this will not be enough. On the other hand, if you expropriate a media outlet –or rather, what remains of that media outlet, since it has been turned into a caricature of journalistic independence– the remedy may end up worse than the disease, for which reason the State would face a dilemma. The Public Prosecutor’s Office will have to be diligent in seeking alternative means of compensation that allow the recovery of this money. In addition, it is very likely that the company has lost value, so having possession of these means does not mean that the State will recover its money, since it is about depreciated and repossessed assets. This is how the Public Ministry must show some imagination in this regard.  – LA PRENSA, Jun. 3.