At the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC), it was almost taken for granted that one of the last decisions of the Cielo Rusinque era would be to impose a multimillion-dollar sanction on Ecopetrol and two of its subsidiaries for anticompetitive practices in contracting helicopter services.
The Investigative Unit of EL TIEMPO revealed earlier that today the advisory council of the entity was meeting to review the imminent sanction, the last requirement needed for the administrative ruling to be filed. But a few minutes ago, an official letter arrived that froze the file.
The Procurator’s Official Letter
It warns that it cannot proceed, until the control entity’s request is answered, which warns that otherwise, a decision could be flawed. And, in summary, it assures the SIC that there is no coherent thread between the arguments to proceed and sanction Ecopetrol, Cenit, and Ocensa with the evidence supporting them.
The official letter, marked URGENT, is signed by Marcio Melgosa, First Delegate Procurator for Preventive Oversight of Public Function, who conducted an inspection visit to the case last Tuesday.
And Melgosa’s letter adds: “Consequently, it is warned that a possible sanction of this nature, adopted based on a motivation susceptible to being disproved by simply confronting the statements contained in the sanction recommendation with the objective information prepared by the same authority, could lead to the judicial annulment of the administrative act and generate significant patrimonial repercussions for the State, not only regarding the collection of a fine that could later lose legal support, but also concerning other economic effects the sanction may cause, with the consequent impact on public assets and, ultimately, on the resources that belong to all Colombians.”
The Effects
“The immediate effect of the letter is that the SIC must respond to the control entity’s information request and, unless they do so during the remainder of the Petro government, the case will have to be resolved by the new government,” explained a source from the SIC itself.
(Check here all the articles from EL TIEMPO’s Investigative Unit)
What the SIC investigates is whether the three companies of the Ecopetrol Group drafted terms of reference and established requirements, tailor-made, to favor the company Helistar from 2011 to 2023 so that it would secure the multimillion-dollar contract. However, the powerful firm does not appear linked to the file.
In this regard, the Procurator’s Office warns in its notice that the visits made by the SIC to the Ecopetrol Group companies were carried out as part of a preliminary inquiry and not an administrative investigation, which may contravene due administrative process and violate fundamental rights of the persons involved in the said procedure.
INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
u.investigativa@eltiempo.com
@UJinvedtigativa ET
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