Overview
- The former finance minister lodged an appeal before the Audiencia Provincial de Tarragona seeking to annul or reverse the judge’s decision to extend the inquiry.
- Anticorruption prosecutors suspect companies routed payments to Equipo Económico to obtain two fiscal measures that lowered taxes for gas-sector firms.
- Montoro’s brief argues there are no rational indicia of criminal conduct, points to a normal patrimonial profile, and says the contested norms were approved by Parliament.
- He maintains he left Equipo Económico before entering the Rajoy government and says he did not know the firm had proposed the reforms to the Finance Ministry.
- The case has been under secrecy for more than seven years with work by the Guardia Civil’s UCO, the Tax Agency and the Mossos, and it remains open after the judge’s six-month extension.