Valencia, February 9, 2021.- The Director of the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency, Joan Llinares, has announced that the AVAF has published all the final investigation resolutions since it began its activity in 2017.
The announcement was made during his appearance in the Valencian Courts to present the Agency’s Activity Report for the year 2019; an appearance that had been delayed due to problems arising from the current pandemic situation.
The AVAF presented the Activity Report for the year 2019 in the registry of the Valencian Courts on March 30 within the legally established deadline and despite the difficulties involved in its completion due to the confinement situation that existed at that time in the country .
During his intervention before the Committee on the Economy, Budgets and Finance, Llinares took a tour of the activity carried out by the Agency during 2019 in relation to the areas of prevention and training, legal analysis and protection of complainants, and analysis and research.
It was at this last point that Joan Llinares announced that the Agency has published all its final investigation resolutions, which are available on the website for public consultation.
This is a total of 51 resolutions, 8 correspond to the year 2017; 14 to 2018 and 29 to 2019. These resolutions have undergone a prior anonymization process to preserve the identity and personal data of the people who appear in said resolutions.
Valencia, January 29, 2021.- On January 27, 2021, the public consultation period opened by the Ministry of Justice of the Government of Spain ended so that any person, entity, association or public body could present allegations to the transposition of the European Directive 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report infringements of Union law, known as the Whitleblowers Directive.
The first of the allegations refers to the extension of the protection of the complainant beyond the twelve areas listed in article 2.1 of the Directive. The AVAF indicates as an essential area to include that of public administrations, and especially, that of its dependent or linked public sector since it is where there are fewer controls. It also recommends expanding the scope of application to other areas and policies of national legislation, whenever there is a risk that non-compliance with these laws could cause serious harm to the public interest and the well-being of society.
With regard to the question of which public sector entities should be included in the personal scope of the Directive, the AVAF is committed to the broadest possible conception of the public sector.
Given the possibility that Spain receives anonymous complaints, the AVAF indicates that they should be allowed since it is the best tool to protect the person who denounces, informs or alerts of irregularities, according to his own experience through his Anonymous complaints mailbox .
Regarding the existence of internal complaint channels both in companies and in public administrations, the Agency proposes a reduction in the level required to make the introduction of internal mailboxes of 50 workers, with respect to companies, and 10,000 inhabitants for the municipalities. The characteristics of both the Spanish business fabric and its municipalities mean that most of them were exempt from this requirement.
Another of the allegations presented refers to the need to create a National Authority for the Fight against Corruption at the state and supplementary level in those autonomous communities that do not have such an institution. This National Authority would be independent from the public administrations and their public sector and would be attached to the Congress of Deputies.
The AVAF in its writing emphasizes that with the work that is being developed to transpose the European Directive, we are faced with a unique opportunity, and this should not be limited to a minimum adaptation to Spanish internal law, but should be reflected in a ambitious Law for the Prevention and Fight against Fraud and Corruption.
This future law would not only include the lines established by the Directive, but would endorse the provisions of the United Nations Convention against Corruption of 2003, which was ratified by Spain in 2006, and which have not yet been incorporated into our legal system.
Finally, the AVAF emphasizes that the transposition of the Directive must allow the harmonization of national law with the different autonomous regulations already approved and in force, as well as articulate the coordination between administrative, criminal or any other type of controls and investigations.
It is emphasized that the Valencian legislator anticipated this Directive through the approval of Law 11/2016, which created the Agency for the Prevention and Fight against Fraud and Corruption of the Valencian Community and that now the Spanish legislator has to regulate on what is already legislated by Les Corts Valencianes.
Valencia. January 20, 2021. The President of the Valencian Corts, Enric Morera, this morning received the Director of the Agency for the Prevention and Fight against Fraud and Corruption of the Valencian Community, Joan Llinares, to talk about work and the advances of an agency that has been a pioneer and leader in the Spanish State. Among other issues, the President of the Autonomous Chamber and the head of the anti-fraud entity have analyzed the incidence of the entity’s work in the transposition of European regulations to the internal sphere of the Valencian administration and also to companies.
In the words of President Morera, “the agency created in the last legislature has taken very important steps and has positioned us as the leading autonomy in the prevention of corruption and fraud in the institutions. In fact, we have to bear in mind that with the creation of the agency we were three years ahead of the European standard in this regard and we continue to be the guide for anti-fraud agencies throughout the state. ” Along these lines, the President of the Corts considers it very important that the agency guarantees the protection of witnesses who denounce corruption.
The Director of the Anti-Fraud Agency, Joan Llinares, recalled that the body he directs has been the forerunner of the creation of a network of Spanish agencies and that they work very closely with the European network, EPAC-ACN. All these actions, in the words of President Morera, “have contributed a lot to the recovery of the reputational credit of Valencian public institutions. As proof, in the last Memory of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Valencian Community, presented in the Corts, there is a notable drop in crimes in the public sphere ”.
In today’s meeting, aspects that can improve the accessibility and democratic quality of Valencian institutions have been analyzed. Also, the Director of the Anti-Fraud Agency has informed President Morera that he plans to present the 2020 report to the Corts during the month of April of this year.
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