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Director of the Administration Department at Iberdrola, Pablo Insunza has filed a lawsuit at the courts of Bilbao against his prior subordinate and the ex-manager of Corporate Control, José Antonio del Olmo. The lawsuit accuses Del Olmo of defamation and libel with advertising.

The lawsuit refers to two reports published by the online newspaper El Confidencial. The first on 3 December, with the headline ‘Iberdrola’s Internal Report Reveals a Murky Plot of Payments to “Get” Politicians’ which makes an alleged report on the company's relations with José Manuel Villarejo public. This report's purpose is to ‘inform the Administration, Control, and Regulation Management [...] about certain activities carried out by Corporate Security Management under the Human Resources and Services Area.’

The second report, on 18 December, was called ‘The Exec Who Pointed His Finger at Galan for Villarejo Confirms his Version after Iberdrola's Offensive’. This report refers to a meeting held by two Iberdrola executives, one of whom was Pablo Insunza, with Del Olmo, in which the executives supposedly encouraged him to deny the truth of the alleged internal report and to sign a statement denying the truthfulness of the report and the events it describes.

Insunza claims in the lawsuit that he ‘never received a report like the one published’, that ‘its existence was never mentioned to him’, and that he was never informed of the events that the alleged document discusses. He believes that if he had received a report with those characteristics and had not acted it would have been in blatant non-compliance with all of Iberdrola's control systems, for which he was partially responsible, a neglect of his duties, and even more seriously, his knowledge of and participation in allegedly criminal conduct.

With respect to the alleged meeting with Del Olmo, Insunza claims that he never met with him after the publication of the alleged report to discuss this matter or any other and, as such, he never asked his ex-subordinate to sign any document or statement, which would have been a ‘grossly libellous’ action for him.

Bearing in mind the information published by El Confidencial and the fact that Del Olmo is the only person who recognises the authenticity of the alleged documents and the alleged meeting afterwards, it is reasonable to believe that he might be the author of the leaks to El Confidencial, making him directly responsible for public disclosure of statements that constitute crimes of libel and defamation against Pablo Insunza.

Insunza demands Del Olmo recognise the falseness of the events published in El Confidencial, ask for forgiveness, and demand the media that published the reports to rectify them.

Rectification letter to ‘El Confidencial’

At the same time, Pablo Insunza has sent a letter to El Confidencial requesting the exercise of the right of rectification under Organic Law 2/1984 of 26 March, which governs the right of rectification, in relation to the publication on 18 December 2019.

Let this media outlet please be informed as well that the pertinent legal actions against José Antonio del Olmo have been filed.