Spain’s National Court has indicted Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas, SA ( FCC), for the payment of $91 million in commissions to a Ricardo Martinelli frontman in order to be awarded public works contracts in Panama.

According to the newspaper El Mundo, on Wednesday, October 30 :  “Bribes paid in Switzerland would have been used to build two subway lines and the City of Health. Among the recipients of the commissions would be a frontman of former president of Panama Ricardo Martinelli ”, whom they identify as the lawyer Mauricio Cort.

Spanish judge Ismael Moreno attributes to FCC the crimes of corruption in international transactions and money laundering. 

The news has also been replicated by Reuters and AP  news agencies  reports La Prensa

According to the order issued on Wednesday, the head of the FCC legal advisory stated in her appearance before the prosecution last July that the documents attached to the complaint “had served as formal coverage for the outflow of funds from the company towards Mauricio Cort as a Martinelli treasurer, for the payment of commissions demanded by the latter to allow FCC to operate in Panama in the field of its public works business ”.

The investigation dates back to 2017, following a complaint against a legal advisor of the multinational Odebrecht for possible money laundering, bribery and criminal organization committed between 2009 and 2015.

The companies Odebrecht and FCC have been partners in several projects in Panama. For example, they bid together for  the contracts for the construction of two of the most ambitious and emblematic projects of the last two governments: Line 1 of the Metro, which cost the Martinelli government (2009-2014 $2.9 billion) , and line two of that transport system, which meant a disbursement by  the Juan Carlos Varela administration of (2014-2019) of $2.130 billion.

Judge Moreno directs the process against the mercantile FCC Construcción SA, FCC Construcción Centroamérica SA, and Construcciones Hospitalarias SA, at the request of the anti-corruption prosecution, El Mundo reported. The three companies  have five days to designate a representative, a lawyer and attorney

Mauricio Cort has been provisionally detained since June as part of the investigation for alleged cost overruns in the study, design, construction, and financing of the Via Brasil corridor, section II, a work that was awarded to FCC for $174.5 million, and which ended up costing $216.2 million.

Cort is also prosecuted for the Odebrecht bribery case but reached collaboration and penalty agreements with the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office reports La Prensa.