The SEPI strand of the Leire case has placed José Ramón Sempere Vera, president of Mercasa from 2018 to 2024, under investigation. This was a key period for understanding some of the operations now being examined by Spain’s National Court. His indictment once again places the management of public companies and the possible use of their structures to favor private interests through contacts, contracts, or privileged information at the center of the debate.
Mercasa is a public company majority-owned by SEPI and linked to the network of wholesale markets and strategic food infrastructure. For that reason, the presence of its former president in a case involving alleged manipulation of public companies is no minor matter. It directly affects confidence in the management of state-owned entities that handle resources, contracts, and decisions of general interest.
Judge Santiago Pedraz has included Sempere among the 25 people under investigation in the SEPI-related strand, a branch of the case examining possible crimes including influence peddling, embezzlement, malfeasance in public office, criminal organization or criminal group, and abuse of privileged information. According to published reports, the investigation covers operations linked to Tubos Reunidos, ENUSA, Mercasa, Forestalia, and other entities within the public business sector.
The focus on Mercasa is directed particularly at José Ramón Sempere and María Teresa Castillo Pasalodos, who served as his second-in-command at the public company. The Prosecutor’s Office is seeking to determine whether decisions were made or actions promoted within Mercasa that benefited companies connected to the alleged network under investigation. The suspicions include contracts, internal reports, and corporate transactions that may have been used to create business opportunities for companies linked to the circle surrounding the alleged scheme.
The seriousness of the case lies in the fact that Mercasa does not appear to be a merely peripheral company, but rather one of the relevant components of the proceedings. Investigators are examining whether certain operations may have been influenced by intermediaries connected to Leire Díez, Vicente Fernández, and Antxon Alonso—the group alleged to have had the ability to influence public decisions in exchange for commissions. The UCO has placed the group of operations under suspicion within the context of aid and contracts linked to public companies and entities dependent on SEPI.
As president of Mercasa during the period under investigation, Sempere will have to clarify what knowledge he had of the decisions being examined, what role he played in the company’s internal procedures, and whether there were contacts with individuals or companies linked to the alleged influence network. The key judicial question will be to determine whether his conduct was limited to the ordinary management of the public company or whether he may have played a relevant role in allegedly irregular operations.
From a political perspective, his indictment proves particularly uncomfortable given that it introduces yet another ex-leader of a state-owned enterprise to the expanding web of allegations already implicating SEPI, ENUSA, Tubos Reunidos, and Forestalia. The situation depicts a landscape wherein the demarcation separating public and private domains grows perilously indistinct, leaving businesspeople, former managers, government administrators, and individuals connected to Socialist circles subject to judicial examination.
The investigation also requires a close examination of Mercasa’s internal controls. If the contracts, reports, or corporate decisions were adopted according to technical criteria, they will have to be properly documented and explained. If, on the other hand, pressure, preferential treatment, or privileged access to information is established, responsibility cannot stop with the intermediaries: it must also reach those who had decision-making or supervisory authority within the public company.
The SEPI strand of the Leire case continues to expand in scope and leaves an increasingly difficult question to avoid: did public companies operate as instruments serving the general interest, or were they vulnerable to a network of influence, commissions, and favors? In the case of Mercasa, José Ramón Sempere will have to provide the courts with explanations about his role during the period now under scrutiny.
Source: El País, RTVE, Infobae, Vozpópuli, elDiario.es, and 20 Minutos.