ALMOST five years have passed since the near-collapse of Bankia, one of Spain’s biggest lenders, forced the country into a European banking bail-out. But inquiries into what went wrong continue—and widen. This week, for the first time, the investigations embroiled Spain’s financial regulators, including a former governor of the central bank, the Bank of Spain, Miguel Angel Fernández Ordóñez.
On February 13th the national court indicted Mr Fernández Ordóñez and seven other senior regulators, ordering a criminal investigation but without specifying any charges. The court is questioning why they allowed Bankia to sell shares in an initial public offering in 2011, less than a year before Bankia’s portfolio of bad mortgage loans forced the government to seize control of it. It said there was evidence the regulators had “full and thorough knowledge” of Bankia’s plight. After its nationalisation, it went on to report a €19.2bn ($ 24.7bn) loss for 2012, the largest in Spanish corporate history.
The investigation comes as several bankers are already awaiting sentencing for mismanagement and fraud. Most prominent is the…
The Economist: Finance and economics
