Overview
- The Audiencia Provincial de Pontevedra dismissed Novas’s final appeal and a Vigo criminal court on June 4 required him to enter A Lama prison within ten working days to serve a six‑month sentence for continued falsification in commercial documents.
- Magistrates refused to suspend the sentence after citing multiple unresolved convictions for tax fraud and fraud from 2013–2015 and a 2024 Supreme Court inadmission that together showed what they called a persistent criminal risk.
- Courts found Novas exercised de facto control over a network of companies that issued and received invoices for no real activity to obtain improper tax refunds, a pattern proven in the Ucaglobal case and cited in the 2023 ruling.
- Reporting and fiscal filings link Novas to Grupo Vinova, the vehicle that bought Hiperxel in July 2021, and judges note the chain’s collapse within two years left about 300 workers jobless and private lenders with more than €11 million in losses.
- Novas can file a narrow administrative recurso de reposición against the diligencia but failure to present himself will trigger police search, arrest and immediate imprisonment, and prior higher‑court appeals have already been denied or inadmitted.