As in all crisis situations, there are always those who seek to take advantage of other people's misfortune, and this health crisis, unfortunately, will not be the exception.
In the face of certain conducts, the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has enabled a single mailbox to receive information, complaints or queries related to COVID-19. These complaints and communications can be directed to the email address covid.competencia@cnmc.es.
The CNMC intends to prosecute behaviors that may affect basic products, not only those of health protection or food, but any other such as financial aid implemented by the Government to face the economic situation caused by the health crisis.
These days we have seen an example that has gone viral and we have also received inquiries from clients that report abusive behavior from some credit institutions. Well-known is the case of some well-known banking entity that tries to condition the processing of the “ICO loans”, announced by the Government to alleviate the health crisis, to the contracting of insurance. A "classic" that has been imposed when applying for a loan.
In other cases, we have found situations in which entities, aware of the difficulties of finding options and oblivious to any type of solidarity or social sensitivity, condition the extension of credit policies to the assumption of new abusive conditions, and again, to the personal endorsement of administrators, partners and relatives, who considered unnecessary a few days ago. It is a disastrous reproduction of the bad banking practices that led to the bankruptcy of many administrators and businessmen in the not so distant crisis of 2008, when many companies - conceived to limit their personal financial liability in the exercise of their activities - entered into economic difficulties and dragged them due to the communication of debts forced by the banking entities.
In addition to the reprehensibility of this action at this difficult time, by some financial entities that seem not to have learned from the situation to which certain bad practices led us, and from the judicial setbacks received in the last decade, we recommend leaving a written record of these attitudes by email or whatsapp, and make simultaneous use of this mailbox of the CNMC when the case deserves it. The CNMC is probably being, as it should be, one of the most active authorities in the prosecution of irregular market conduct, having recently imposed million-dollar fines on the main financial entities in our country. An example is the sanction imposed on Banco Santander in 2018, amounting to 4,5 million euros, for not acting in the optimal interest of its clients.
Regardless of the possible sanctions or warnings that the CNMC could impose on financial entities, having the greatest possible proof of these behaviors is essential to be able to exercise the legal actions that, in due course, may correspond; or at least, to present the extrajudicial claim that allows the cessation and review of said behaviors and, ultimately, access to financing under the terms established by the Government, without having to assume extra costs in the already complicated economic situation current.
