What really had happened was very different: Bauen SACIC had accepted a plan in fifteen payments, of which it only made the first. That is, Giordano was making his demand on the basis of an arrangement that had expired for lack of payment, and on top of then, tried to make the State pay the costs of the trial. As we see, it is a constant in the conduct of the Iurcoviches to finance themselves one way or another with public funds (taking out loans that are not repaid, suing the State in shameless trials, not paying their tax obligations). In short, taking a page from the textbook on how to scam the public treasury used by most of the national business class (and the international business class) operating in this country. As Damonte noted in his written statement, “the disorder that the the defendant provokes is created with the sole objective of avoiding its fiscal obligations.”
On September 20, 2001, the court decreed the restraint of the goods of Bauen SACIC, and in April of 2002, Damonte, as legal representative of the GCBA, requested their auction. But the expertise of the firm’s lawyers in drawing things out was, undoubtedly, great, and they were able to go on without paying absolutely anything until October 12, 2011, when the business’ goods were embargoed, this time at the BAUEN Suite (the hotel constructed on Corrientes Avenue, around the corner from the first), for a total, with interests and punitive costs, of AR$4,736,057.62 (the original amount was of $794,640.54 as of 31/12/1998).
But, once more, they were able to wriggle out of it. On January 6, 2012, the National Institute of Industrial Property made known to the court that the Bauen Suite brand was in the name of Hugo Eduardo Iurcovich, after a transfer made September 10, 2009, which was why it could not be seized for the debts of the old enterprise, Bauen SACIC. By all appearances, the son inherited the slimy ability of the father to never pay his debts.
The final curtain was pulled by the GCBA itself, which finally, and generously, wrote off the debts (which were, after all, extremely difficult to collect), and freed the Iurcoviches of this heavy burden. It is not strange, then, that eyewitnesses cited by Santiago O’Donnell in his article have said they heard Marcelo Iurcovich boast of having constructed a five-star hotel without disbursing a single peso.1 As a consequence of everything we have described, it is clear that from beginning to end, the Iurcovich group is less an investor group, and more a scavenger of capital at the expense of the State, and taking advantage of the considerable earnings from the hotel, Bauen SACIC diverted those funds towards the construction of the Bauen Suite on Corrientes avenue, and set up two phantom off-shore businesses in Uruguay and hotel ventures in Brazil and Puerto Iguazú, among other businesses. And, with the patience that comes from knowing that the system and time are on their side, it hopes that things will go back to how they always were, and the Bauen hotel, where everything started, will come back into their hands.
- Santiago O’Donnell, ob. cit.↩