The National Cooperative of Milk Producers (Conaprole) sued the Uruguayan state for a debt for the purchase of powdered milk made by Venezuela nine years ago and that, according to the cooperative, the government did not help to fulfill its payment; However, the Justice freed the State from the lawsuit for more than 60 million dollars.
He appeals court establishes that the demand for Conaprole began outside the period provided for by law, so the Uruguayan state is free from all responsibility associated with the lack of payment by Venezuela in the purchase of powdered milk 15 years ago. On the other hand, the ruling established that Uruguay It is the place where you can continue litigating against Venezuela, as reported by El País.
On the other hand, the Venezuelan state does not recognize the claim and emphasizes the importance of trying to resolve the claim in its country. “It is fully proven and uncontroversial that the parties include a contractual clause where they agreed on the regime of Venezuelan law,” established Venezuela’s defense.
In that sense, they assured that “the Republic of Venezuela It was not and is not a party to the aforementioned contracts, having not signed any of them and there being no rule that attributes jurisdiction to the Uruguayan courts.” “In other words, Corpovex is not the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” they added, referring to the Venezuelan state company Venezuelan Foreign Trade Corporation (Corpovex)which carried out the agreement.
The origin of the demand
It all started in 2015 under the presidency of Tabare Vazquezwhen the president announced on June 6 the agreement with Venezuela. The Bolivarian Republic owed the Uruguayan state a total of 400 million dollars that it owed to the debt of Ancap with PDVSA for 400 million dollars.
In return, Venezuela had to buy 265,000 tons of food, which had to be paid for through a deposit of 300 million dollars in the Bandes Bank. The paper of Conaprole would be to export 44,000 tons of powdered milk and 12,000 tons of cheese, an equivalent of 39 million dollars agreed with Corpovex. However, the government of Nicolas Maduro The form of the agreement changed and the trust changed banks and the money was never deposited.
The patience of Uruguay, the impatience of Conaprole
Following the delay in payment, the Uruguayan government approved law 19,397, which provided Venezuela a period of 3 years in which Uruguay was responsible for the unpaid interest. There, the dairy cooperative was only able to recover 8 million dollars, while in 2017 they once again extended the grace to the Venezuelan state for one year.
In 2020 the deadline expired and Conaprole decided to go against the Uruguayan state by understanding it as a “necessary participant in the contracting and execution of the sale and purchase of powdered milk and the lack of compliance of the co-defendants materializes its responsibility.” In addition, it sued the Venezuelan state and Corpovex.
However, the Justice It exonerated the State in the first instance since it understands that all credits or claims against the State, of any origin or nature, will expire after four years, counted from the date on which they could be due.” Against this, Conaprole He appealed considering that the proclaimed laws hindered the claim of the debt.
“The State cannot impose conditions that prevent the claim and then seek expiration since laws were allowed to grant grace periods,” stated the appeal of the cooperative company, which owes $40,000 to each of its 1,600 cooperative members against an original debt of $30 million for damages and another $31.8 million for powdered milk shipments.
However, the response of appeals court she was the same again. “The actriss (Conaprole) He opted for one of the courses of action he had, which was to obtain financing and payment of interest and not to claim the State for the facts that they now expose and consequently, he let the expiration period expire. legally provided for claims,” the Court stated. “The rule enabled a rescue line for companies that agreed to a grace period, but did not impose it,” he added.
Source: Ambito
