06/28/2024
Some hopelessness and a lot of uncertainty. This is what is noted in several of the local investors – they are called victims – of the failed Meritage project on which an international arbitration court has just ruled, exempting the Colombian State from a conviction that would have entailed the payment of more than one billion pesos.
The award of the Tribunal of the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), based in Washington (United States), only falls on a group of foreign investors who developed the project and filed a lawsuit. However, some of the Colombians—most of them from Antioquia—who bought apartments or premises in the urban complex located in Las Palmas, in the jurisdiction of Envigado, fear that there will be a collateral effect on the legal processes underway in the country and that This is negative for your interests.
We recommend you read: Colombia was saved from paying more than a billion pesos for the Meritage case, located in Las Palmas
The Meritage legal mess stems from the fact that this complex began to be built in 2015 on land that was linked to Iván López Vanegas, a man identified by the Prosecutor’s Office as a member of the Oficina gang and who was prosecuted in the United States for drug trafficking. Only then did he return to the country exonerated of the charges. Therefore, what they alleged in the ICSID is that this was practically an expropriation and that this type of action is prohibited by the FTA with the United States.
However, through the defense made by the State Legal Defense Agency (Andje), Colombia took advantage of the figure of the essential security exception, contemplated in the international treaties and agreements signed with the World Trade Organization (WTO). ).
AND Although the ICSID refused to rule on the validity of the arguments for issuing the forfeiture in this case, it did validate the intention in assuming the measure, “since it always sought to prevent the completion of money laundering for the benefit of one of the main criminal organizations in the country,” according to Andje’s lawyers.
In the country, in parallel, there are two processes related to the issue in which the State is sued and the chats that group the plaintiffs began to boil last Thursday as soon as the movement was known in the ICSID.
“We were aware that regardless of the ruling in favor or against the foreign investors, there was no obligation towards us because the ruling does not cover us; now we hope that the Colombian justice system will act, hopefully in our favor and that it will be detailed that we were buyers in good faith and free of guilt because we did what had to be done, we asked if the lot had problems and we placed the money in a trust; we hope that within that reasoning the judges will say that we did what we should have and how they are going to compensate us,” said Elkin Escobar, one of the 87 people who, through lawyers, have filed legal appeals before the administrative court. The claims are close to 200 billion pesos.
We also suggest you watch: Land in Las Palmas, the center of a lawsuit for which Colombia would have to pay more than $1 billion
The Administrative Court of Antioquia has already ruled in the first instance one of those cases against the claims of just over 50 people and currently the process is pending for the Council of State to rule in the second instance. The other claim, which represents about 30 people, is still pending in the first instance in the Antioquia court.
Stories of how they got hurt also come and go in the chat. Escobar, for example, paid 500 million pesos for a 100-square-meter apartment and was three months away from receiving the property when the scandal broke out and all of his plans fell apart.
“My project was to go live at Meritage, a country complex outside the city, but close to it, at the end of my work process (pension), and that was the idea of many people,” he added.
Nothing different from what Mónica Martínez thought, who had separated and invested what she received as part of the liquidation of her marital partnership there, because she saw that it was a well-structured project when it was presented to her at a stand in the El Tesoro shopping center. . The apartment cost 600 million pesos and she managed to pay off 350 million pesos that she now has in the air.
But the situation is perhaps worse for María Cecilia Bedoya. In fact, she lived out of two apartments that she rented in Envigado and she sold them to pay cash at Meritage in order to take advantage of a discount they gave for prompt payment. “I sold outright, we gave the money in May and since that (the forfeiture of ownership) happened in June or July, I was left without apartments and with nothing,” she said. Her daughter and her son-in-law, who live in Panama, also contributed money.
You can also visit: Meritage, a coveted project under threat
She says that although her lawyer has told her to stay calm, she is torn between the optimism that he gives her and her son-in-law’s comments that the money has already been lost.
“The ruling hit us hard because if they had won we would have to win too, but we got into that business in good faith,” he added.
Faced with the avalanche of doubts, Víctor Pérez, one of the lawyers involved in the case who is in the Council of State, made a video in which he explained that, in his opinion, the ICSID ruling does not have an impact at the local level because it does not actually contain a substantive ruling.
“We are proposing that small investors, who are not even considered affected in the domain forfeiture process and therefore have not been recognized with any rights, have suffered a financial loss. Even if there is an action for forfeiture of ownership, they are people completely unrelated to that action, their contributions in the trust were not seized, but the truth is that those contributions went to a property where some large buildings were finally built and what is there there are ruins,” said the lawyer.
Apart from everything, the defense is based on the alleged irregularities in the administration of justice and that is why they are suing the Prosecutor’s Office, which is said to have issued certifications at that time to the effect that there was no legal impact on the case.
Meritage was a real estate project with housing and commerce offered in 2015. It promised to be so big that it was equivalent to three times the size of the El Tesoro shopping center. However, it was abandoned in 2016 when it was taken over by the State.
Continue reading: There will be no eviction in the Caucasia megalot: SAE will maintain dialogues with invaders
