Suele repetirse que una Justicia
lenta, no es Justicia. Los efectos de un comportamiento ilícito deben ser
enjuiciados y sus responsables sancionados en momentos próximos a su
acaecimiento. Pretensiones que topan, sin embargo, con realidades que “explican” su no cumplimiento. Entre esas
realidades cabe mencionar la complejidad que implica determinar hechos y sus
responsables.
Esa circunstancia subyace en la
actuación de inspección y sanción que en Estados Unidos se puso en marcha a
partir de la explosión de la crisis financiera en 2007. Un artículo reciente en
The
Washington Post refleja los
problemas que ha encontrado la Securities
and Exchange Commissión para perseguir conductas irregulares y que amenazan
su actuación ante el riesgo de que el plazo de prescripción impida formular
nuevas acusaciones. Ese plazo es de cinco años:
“Some courts
have ruled that the Securities and Exchange Commission can only obtain civil
penalties for fraud within five years of the activity taking place. More
recently, the influential federal district court in Manhattan ruled that time
runs out five years after the SEC discovers or should have discovered the
alleged fraud.
Either way,
the agency is pressing up against deadlines — at least in matters that arose
early in the financial crisis, which erupted in mid-2007, legal experts said”.
Adviértase que han sido muchos los
casos que ya se han traducido en acusaciones
y sanciones:
“The urgency
may have to do as much with public demand for accountability in the financial
meltdown as it does with deadlines. The SEC has charged 110 entities or
individuals in financial crisis-related cases and collected $1.6 billion
in penalties, the agency said. For instance, within the past two years, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay a record
$550 million penalty and JPMorgan Chase agreed to a
$153.6 million sanction. The government has not disclosed how many
other probes are underway or who’s being investigated”.
Lo llamativo es que el plazo de cinco
años parece ser dispositivo:
“But for
whatever’s left in the pipeline, there are ways to get more time if needed.
For cases
under active investigation, the SEC can negotiate “tolling agreements.” Under
those arrangements, firms or people under investigation agree to waive the
five-year limit — or else.
“There’s always
this moment when the SEC says: ‘You enter into this tolling agreement or we sue
you tomorrow,’” said John C. Coffee Jr., a law professor at Columbia Law
School who specializes in security regulation. “Most defendants prefer to enter
into this type of agreement and avoid a dramatic event such as a lawsuit.”
Aside from
sullying the defendant’s reputation, a lawsuit also could force the SEC to air
allegations that turn out not to be justified, legal experts said. It’s often
in the interest of a firm or individual to give the SEC time to sort through
the facts, they said.
For all those
reasons, as the five-year anniversary of the financial crisis approaches,
several lawyers say they’ve seen an uptick in tolling agreements”.
Todo ello, sin perjuicio de reiterar
la importancia de una pronta acción, como presupuesto de una más eficaz
investigación y eventual sanción:
“Still,
there’s plenty of incentive for the SEC not to drag its feet.
Memories fade,
evidence vanishes and witnesses disappear as time passes, eroding the agency’s
ability to mount a successful case, agency officials said.
Taking action
closer to the time of wrongdoing also deters similar fraudulent activity and
makes it easier to compensate victims. Unlike many other agencies, the SEC can use
penalties it collects to pay wronged investors instead of sending the money to
the U.S. Treasury”.
Madrid, 23 de Julio de 2012
