May 2022

The attempts to collect the remainder through the Banco Nación, the entity that managed the residual portfolio of the BANADE, included an agreement in 1994 with Bauen SACIC for six million dollars. At that time, parity of 1 peso = 1 dollar (Convertibility Law of 1991) was in effect, which established a more than favorable agreement for the Iurcoviches, since it notably reduced the original amount. Even so, the Iurcoviches would again fail to fulfill their agreements.1 According to calculations… Read More »BAUEN, day 22

The contract signed with Bauen SACIC stipulated a series of disbursements that the BANADE would make in return for the firm presenting certificates that gave an account of the progress of the work. Shortly after beginning, Iurcovich’s business introduced a series of modifications to the original plans approved by the bank, consisting of increased parking, an expansion of the conference hall, and the construction of a pool. The BANADE approved these modifications, but stated that the loan should be understood… Read More »BAUEN, day 21

These are the social reasons of the businesses that asked BANADE for loans they never finished paying, if they even started, or ever intended to. The liquidation of the National Bank of Development during the government of Carlos Menem facilitated things things for them. Gaglianone Establecimiento Gráfico SACI is currently the recovered business Chilavert Graphic Arts Worker Cooperative, Ltd., while Electrodomésticos Aurora SA was rebaptized by the workers as Renacer [Rebirth] Worker Cooperative, Ltd. With the exception of Sasetru, all… Read More »BAUEN, day 20

The maneuvers of chaining firms that are bought and sold as a way to hide the true owners and the source of their capital, getting loans from public banks and never paying them, using debt waivers or transfers to the State, and filing lawsuits against the State to obstruct investigations (something like a thief shouting “stop, thief”), are typical tricks used by which business groups of the so-called “contractor homeland” to grow at the expense of the public treasury, and… Read More »BAUEN, day 19

Chapter 3 How to scam the State The complex business framework we have described provides the starting point for the asset-stripping and bankruptcy of the Bauen hotel, which was a scam on the treasury right from the beginning. The plot of this operation is widely detailed in a work by Federico Tonarelli (former president of the cooperative, current vice-president, and president of the Argentine Federation of Self-Managed Worker Cooperatives, FACTA) and Fabián Pierucci (economist and filmmaker, director of the documentary… Read More »BAUEN, day 18

Here is where Marcelo Iurcovich appears: according to an article published by journalist Santiago O’Donnell in the newspaper Página/12,1 his excellent relationships with the military government, especially with Brigadier General Osvaldo Cacciattore, by then the de facto mayor of the City of Buenos Aires, and with ship captain (later rear admiral) Carlos Alberto Lacoste, who was the head of the EAM 78,2 allowed Iurcovich get a very favorable loan from BANADE for the construction of a five-star hotel right at… Read More »BAUEN, day 17

The Iurcoviches Marcelo Iurcovich was born in 1923 and died April 3, 2003. He was married to Raquel Kaliman, daughter of Moisés Israel Kaliman. Their son, Hugo Iurcovich, succeeded him at the head of his businesses, and he continues there today. The civilian-military dictatorship that came to power with the coup d’etat on March 24, 1976, inherited an excellent opportunity from the government of María Estela Martínez de Perón to try to bleach its image and take advantage of the… Read More »BAUEN, day 16

The origins of the Bauen: the 1978 World Cup “Even though it cost 700 million dollars, for the first time, we Argentines know what things cost, and we will pay that debt, even if it does not turn out to be easy.” This was the opening of an editorial in the magazine Gente from June first, 1978, one of the many media outlets committed to propaganda service to the military dictatorship. In those days, they devoted their full efforts to… Read More »BAUEN, day 15

The Bauen and the dictatorship When talking about business complicity with the dictatorship, it is well worth taking the Bauen hotel as an example, as one of many negotiated in the crude complicity of those years. This relationship meant not only the support of the business community for those who committed genocide, but the repayment of that connivance with businesses and specific benefits. Marcelo Iurcovich was one of these beneficiaries. The building was constructed in record time with public money,… Read More »BAUEN, day 14

Chapter 2 Bauen SACIC’s hidden plot “Too much money for a few people,” said Senator Federico Pinedo in opposition to the expropriation of the hotel Bauen for the cooperative, when it was being discussed in the National Senate. This a common ideological stance, which is also held by some judges who objected to the Constitutionality of expropriation laws for businesses recovered by their workers, which says that the “public utility” on which these laws are based would not make sense,… Read More »BAUEN, day 13