Madrid (EFE) of ex-commissioner Villarejo.
In a ruling dated March 29, to which EFE has had access, Bilbao’s first instance court no. to Iberdrola, whose “unquestionable public projection” justifies “the legitimate fundamental right to freedom of expression”.
The judge recalls that this is the investigation of a “macro-cause” on the “alleged illegal work carried out in relation to Iberdrola by the retired commissioner Villarejo”, and highlights that “it was known that a good part of these works referred to ACS and Florentino Perez”.
Iberdrola filed the lawsuit after ACS published, in March 2021, a “manifestly insulting and defamatory” statement, the electric company pointed out, in which it was accused of criminal responsibilities in the Villarejo case -in which Iberdrola does not even have the status of investigated-, accusing him of supporting the actions of a former manager by having paid him a large severance pay.
In the statement, the company’s behavior was “twice called disgusting,” the lawsuit added.
In 2019, the sentence relates, the content of some conversations between Villarejo and the then head of Iberdrola Security, Antonio Asenjo, became known, in which, referring to Florentino Pérez “and with the presumed intention of causing him the greatest possible reputational damage ”, both valued the possibility of organizing a show with “a child next door”.
The ACS statement addressed this issue, continues the judge, “being ACS within its full right to publicly clarify the issue raised and to describe the previous facts as ‘disgusting’.”
The adjective “disgusting” did not refer to Iberdrola or its former head of Security, but to the content of the audios, and no criminal responsibility was attributed to the company, but rather its responsibility was simply mentioned, the sentence continues.
The presentation in court of copies of the conversations between Villarejo and Asenjo and of a “mere statement” from ACS “is fully protected by the constitutional right of Florentino Pérez to defend himself and to use the pertinent means of evidence for it,” he adds. .
In parallel to the lawsuit rejected by the Bilbao court, the judge of the National Court Manuel García Castellón is investigating whether Iberdrola hired the former commissioner for one million euros between 2004 and 2012 to, among other things, infiltrate platforms contrary to their interests or investigate a shareholder critical of his management, and among those allegedly spied on is ACS.