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NATIONAL 12:00 a.m. Thursday March 31, 2016
"Petaquilla financed the campaign and panameñismo CD"
Luis Ernesto Carles, was a partner of Rodrigo Esquivel, who Fifer identified as one of the amanueses Ricardo Martinelli used to manage the mining company
From left to right, Federico Barahona, Rodrigo Esquivel, Ricardo Martinelli, Lazaro Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Varela and Raul Ferrer. / Courtesy
COURTESY
From left to right, Federico Barahona, Rodrigo Esquivel, Ricardo Martinelli, Lazaro Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Varela and Raul Ferrer.
Ricardo Fernandez
ricardo.fernandez@elsiglo.com
The businessman Richard Fifer revealed to La Estrella de Panama that in addition to business and labor entanglements, problems with delay in payment of the return and the labor share employer of its employees, the mining company Petaquilla tried to penetrate into two political parties, financing their election campaigns. He even told a minister of the current government as a key player in an alternate plan to maintain their relationships with power. Then the second part of the interview he gave Fifer to this medium.
WHY TAKE A INMET (PARENT COMPANY) THE GAME?
To add a complication to this situation First Quantum Minerals LTD., A transnational with a gross domestic product greater than the entire Republic of Panama, launches a hostile takeover bid for the purchase of INMET against the then owner of Minera Panama, this It occurs in late November 2012. When meeting amid a threat of hostile takeover by First Quantum Minerals, Inmet proceeds immediately to yield to all legal issues by Petaquilla, who was paralyzed for more than five years.
DO YOU ACHIEVED AGREEMENT?
Within months an agreement worth $ 140 million under the negotiation of Rodrigo Esquivel and support the government of Ricardo Martinelli is achieved. On February 23, 2013, signing a trade agreement with Petaquilla ending these long disputes they were over five years. This achievement would last only two weeks, since First Quantum is successful in its hostile takeover of Inmet.
Did this affect relationships?
Begins a very volatile period against this new company Raul Ferrer and Rodrigo Esquivel, feel insecure and try to consolidate power with Martinelli, in the period from May to June 2013, is where the threats by First Quantum Minerals come Ltd. on May 23 of that year, signed with first Quantum Minerals the first amendment to the agreement previously signed on February 24 with Inmet. From that date on First Quantum Minerals Ltd it is systematically engaged in a commercial attack to bring the group of Petaquilla to insolvency achieved when Rodrigo Esquivel left the company in 2014 and consisting of the date on which suppliers submit a bankruptcy the August 28, 2014.
¿TURNED THE STRATEGY?
The result of this new strategy of the new owner of Minera Panama because President Martinelli meets on October 22 with them to urge them to buy Petaquilla Minerals and tells the director of First Quantum that this purchase is necessary to be released from problem. On October 26, Martin Rowley, director of First Quantum Minerals, shares with Richard Fifer Carles signed in the presence of Rodrigo Esquivel, the meeting on October 23 with President Martinelli, where calls for First Quantum Minerals buy Petaquilla Minerals Ltd. This obviously was a continuation of arbitrary state interference in the management of private enterprise and represents one of the arguments of the claims that have already brought internationally at the World Bank in the amount of $ 2,300,000,000.00 both in Washington DC, as in the federal courts of New York.
WHAT OTHER CHANGES ARE THERE?
First Quantum shown on this mandate Ricardo Martinelli an excellent opportunity to break all the commitments they had with Petaquilla group companies. Initiate a systematic process of leaving insolvent Petaquilla and on the other hand, isolate Rodrigo Esquivel and Raul Ferrer, because at this time Ricardo Martinelli had abandoned his commercial interest in Petaquilla and was focused on raising funds for re-election the ruling party in the elections on May 4, 2014 to be held in barely six months.
HOW SURGE FIRST QUANTUM?
This company First Quantum, a Canadian-Australian, born in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and South Africa, with its main operations in Zambia today. It is important to detail that this company does know how to handle yourself in a position of trade war, with extensive experience in handling in which Martinelli aspired to subdue them. The reality of what happened was that the process of destruction on Petaquilla proceeded systematically with the government 'under the direction of Raul Ferrer and Rodrigo Esquivel', wanting to be used as an economic tool for the re-election of his government and First Quantum, failing their contracts to accelerate insolvency. Arriving currently Ferrer and Raul Rodrigo Esquivel come into complete panic conceptualizing a new strategy of how to get out and leave Petaquilla because they say that has left Ricardo Martinelli.
This strategy is manifested by a campaign in the media to take responsibility to me for all the facts of the past five years, where they and Martinelli were those who ruled. On one occasion (July 2013) I made my remarks and ask for an explanation, the next day, at the Intercontinental Hotel, in the company of Rodrigo Esquivel and Raul Ferrer, he tells me an SPI (who accompanied Raul Ferrer), President Martinelli sent me to say she had been too long away from Panama and I had to be to fix the existing problem, this was completely contrary to the discourse of the last four previous years, when I said I had to be away from Panama, making investments in other countries.
The threat was told that failing to respect the clear message that renounce policy Petaquilla Minerals LTD. Raul Ferrer gives effect to the result of the instructions received from the President of the Republic threats. Parallel to this, Rodrigo Esquivel puts an alternate plan to work as a member of the National Board panameñismo with his law partner, Luis Ernesto Carles, to have an alternative plan if the election fails Martinelli. Using company resources aggravates the already insolvent Petaquilla, supporting the two campaigns, the Democratic Change and the panameñismo.
Failing in the elections of 2014, First Quantum, watching their window of opportunity closed, coerces under economic pressure and runs a leonine shareholders Petaquilla contract, May 8, 2014, four days after the electoral defeat. Simultaneously, Esquivel and Ferrer transferred during the 6 and 7 May 2014, 7.8 million dollars in tax credits to third, prompting a complaint by the company rests in the Criminal Court 10 of Panama. In late August 2014 resignation Esquivel, coinciding with a bankruptcy filed by one of the creditors on August 28, 2014.
Days later running in the office Esquivel and Raul in Panama, a robbery where only the most sensitive documents that spoke of the financial and operational work of the last five years were extracted, theft duly reported and registered with the DIJ.
This case Ferrer added that admitted me some time later in conversation held in New York, saying that he had been involved in it and in its possession a hard drive was with company information. Here begins a new phase in the struggle to sustain thirty years of work at the start of the new government.
CURRENTLY, THERE ARE SEVERAL CRIMINAL PROSECUTION AGAINST ONE OF HER CASE IS SOCIAL SECURITY FOR BREACH OF PAYMENTS OF CONTRIBUTIONS OBRERO EMPLOYERS detriment of 600 WORKERS IN THE COMPANY. WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT IT?
How good that we fell in this part !. In my defense I will say that these criminal actions were filed against the legal representative of the company, which at this moment I am, but not against me, as a person. And made it clear that it was Rodrigo Esquivel who served as president and legal representative of the company five years of the Martinelli. As proof I attached reports of the Public Registry records, documents that are public and where the names of these gentlemen as president and legal representative of the company stand out.
During these five years, is Rodrigo Esquivel who as manager and responsible for the company stops paying dues to Social Security. Esquivel who is twice in his five-year presidency makes two payment arrangements with the institution failing in both agreements.
On several occasions, the defense Esquivel said he left the company in peace and safety. That is false, left her with a million-dollar debt and a payment arrangement that is different and not the same.
This money could have paid off with the money that could have been obtained from the sale of the 7.8 million tax credits. On this point, I mean that Raul Ferrer testified before me that this money was delivered within the team members Ricardo Martinelli, money the company had intended for cancellation of employee benefits and Social Security, and now rests company a complaint against Rodrigo Esquivel and Raul Ferrer, in the Tenth Court of Criminal.
Consideration during reconstruction, because previously we had no knowledge of the events for lack of legal access, the seats of the Public Registry and Documents Social Security we realize that stood as a guarantee of payment arrangement property of Petaquilla, valued at three million dollars. This guarantee was raised by the CSS in the final settlement payment made by Rodrigo Esquivel after his departure as president and legal representative of the company, with the intention to achieve peace and safe to let him make the business transaction with Minera Panama, company that owes the Petaquilla group 9.2 billion, as stated by one of its directors under oath, in a preliminary exhibitoria diligence in the Sixth Court of Civil Circuit of the First Judicial Circuit of Panama, and we have his testimony.
We wonder why the CSS has not required the guarantee of Minera Panama returned or payment thereof, given the failure to pay promised by them in the contract.
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'Using company resources, aggravates the already insolvent Petaquilla, supporting the two campaigns, the Democratic Change and panameñismo'
RICHARD FIFER
PETAQUILLA
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'Parallel to this, Rodrigo Esquivel puts an alternate plan to work as a member of the National Board panameñismo with his law partner, Luis Ernesto Carles'
RICHARD FIFER
PETAQUILLA
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DO NOT MISS TOMORROW: FIFER GIVES HIS VERSION TANGLE IN THE PAYMENT OF FEES OF CSS
