双语阅读｜西班牙银行业在危机过后“大清算”
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.
五年前，西班牙最大的贷款银行之一的班基亚银行一度濒临破产，迫使政府向欧盟寻求金融援助。不过，对西班牙银行业危机的调查仍在进行和深入。本周，调查工作首次触及西班牙金融监管部门，其中包括中央银行行西班牙银行前行长米格尔·安杰尔·费尔南德斯·欧德内斯(Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez)。
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.
2月13日，西班牙国家法院起诉了费尔南德斯-欧德内斯和另外七位高级深监管人员，要求对他们展开刑事调查，但是没有公开具体的指控罪名。法院质疑这些监管人员为何在2011年时允许班基亚银行上市，而此后不到一年时间，该银行的巨额不良抵押贷款就迫使政府接手救助。法院称，有证据表明这些监管人员当时完全了解到班基亚银行的困境。班基亚银行国有化后，在2012年公布亏损192亿欧元（合247亿美元），创下西班牙企业史上最高亏损纪录。
The investigation comes as several bankers are already awaiting sentencing for mismanagement and fraud. Most prominent is the former chairman of Bankia, Rodrigo Rato, previously Spain’s finance minister and managing director of the IMF. Mr Rato and other directors are accused of misleading investors, and, separately, of embezzling money by using corporate credit cards for their own purchases.
在法院宣布调查之前，有多位银行家因管理不善和诈骗等罪名接受法院判决。其中最著名的是曾任班基亚银行董事长、西班牙财政大臣、IMF执行董事的罗德里戈·拉托（Rodrigo Rato）。拉托和班基亚银行其他董事被指控误导投资者，以及使用企业信用卡进行私人消费以挪用公款。针对这些监管人员的指控大部分来自银行内部电子邮件以及检察人员撰写的报告； 据称这些报告当时并没有引起上一级官员的重视。
The evidence against the regulators comes mostly from internal e-mails and reports compiled by inspectors and then allegedly ignored by their superiors. In one in-house exchange of information mentioned by the court, an inspector called Bankia “a money-losing machine”, whose deficiencies could not be solved by a share listing. The court also called “devastating” the content of another report, urging Bankia to look for a buyer, preferably a foreign one, rather than proceed with a listing. Based on its estimate of its losses, it described Bankia as “a group that is not viable”, an opinion written in red capital letters. The report was sent to Pedro Comín, a director of the Bank of Spain and one of three central-bank officials who resigned this week after the court’s indictment.
法院提到的一份银行内部信息交易中，一名检察人员称班基亚银行是一部烧钱机器，其缺陷无法通过上市融资解决。法院还表示，另一份报告的内容更加骇人听闻，包括敦促班基亚银行寻找一个买家，最好是国外买家，而不是继续上市。该报告基于对班基亚银行亏损做出的估计，用红色大写字母将班基亚描述为一家无法独立运营的银行。该报告递交给了西班牙银行董事、西班牙央行三大官员之一的佩德罗（ Pedro Comn）。在法院起诉对他发起起诉后，他已于本周辞职。
Spain’s judges rarely send first-time offenders to prison for financial crimes. But in January five senior executives of Novacaixagalicia, a regional bank, became the first Spanish bankers to go to jail for being guilty of fraud and mismanagement during the financial crisis. The national court unexpectedly altered a sentence issued in 2015 that had found the five guilty of embezzlement, but had given them only suspended prison sentences.
西班牙法官很少将经济罪初犯定罪入狱。但是，一月，地方银行Novacaixagalicia的的五名高管因在金融危机中犯有管理不善和诈骗罪，开启了西班牙历史上银行家入狱之先河。西班牙国家法院出人意料地更改了2015年的一份判决——该判决曾将五位被告定为挪用公款罪，仅对他们判处缓刑。
Spain has drawn the curtain on its banking crisis, led by a slimmed-down and rescued Bankia that returned to profit under new management as early as 2013. But the long—and slow-moving—arm of the law is only now reaching those responsible for the mess in the first place.
早在2013年，经过人事精简、获得金融救助的班基亚银行在新的领导层带领下恢复盈利时，西班牙的银行业危机就已落幕。但是，漫长而又进展缓慢的司法行动现在才刚刚触及这场混乱的始作俑者。
编译：杜甜甜
编辑：翻吧君
来源：经济学人