BNM was a corporation existing and organized in Peru by individuals and legal persons, and governed by the General Company Act and the Banking and Financial Institutions Law.

In view of its illegal intervention and liquidation, our first response was an administrative proceeding, but very soon we had to defend ourselves in court.

Two lawyers, Alberto Borea and David Cunza, who were also close friends, suggested we file for an injunction.

Then we filed several lawsuits. The first one for damages through a demand for protection that allowed us to return to the Bank with court appointed controllers and prevent the illegal transfer of the Bank to BIF and the Peruvian government from improperly disbursing 200 million dollars for the presumed BNM deficit.

In the meantime, Alejandro Toledo was inaugurated as President of Peru and offered to undo this injustice. A hopeful door opened.

A few days after the new administration had been inaugurated, SBS and Superintendent Cortavarría reversed our protection measure and recovered the administration of BNM, already under intervention. They sought to pursue their plan to transfer our portfolio to BIF, together with 200 million dollars worth of State bonds. By this time, there was no doubt whatsoever about the power of the Executive Branch over SBS through the judges.

However, when BIF quit, SBS sent the Bank to liquidation.

Cortavarría left the scene. His mission during almost 12 months and through three administrations had concluded. When he was a university professor, Juan José Marthans, the new Superintendent, had termed the intervention inappropriate from a technical selfless standpoint. However, he changed his mind and he aligned himself against BNM and its shareholders by adopting an illegal position. Technical considerations were left aside. Was he following politically-motivated instructions?

We filed before the Supreme Court a contentious administrative lawsuit to seek the annulment of the legal act. In other words, we held the liquidation was null and void. We filed for protection before the Judiciary because we thought the value of our property had been illegally reduced to zero and cancelled us as Bank shareholders and legal representatives.

Because we lacked information of what the Superintendency was doing and evidence of a number of fraudulent acts committed without technical support, we filed a Habeas Data remedy requesting information.

SBS, in collusion with NMH creditors, had set itself the clear objective to get the BNM loan portfolio absorbed by BIF so they all could be repaid.

Obviously, they believed what authorities told them. Both, NMH creditors and the authorities chose to file a criminal lawsuit against us.

While we fought to protect our property in civil courtrooms, they attacked us in criminal courts calling us criminals.

Our filing for protection in the civil courtroom was successful and in 2004 we were reinstated as shareholders. That same year we also won our Habeas Data remedy before the Constitutional Court to obtain valuable information we wanted to produce before the Supreme Court to have the liquidation decision annulled. At that same Supreme Court we also obtained a protection order that halted the liquidation proceedings. However, this order was ignored and the Bank’s liquidation went on. SBS disregarded the court’s orders thus revealing the weakness of a Judiciary submitted to the Executive Branch.

By August 2006, the lawsuit to declare the liquidation null and void had reached the Supreme Court. We thought we had clearly explained the court’s judges the nature of this aberration and that they would admit we were right. But Alan García, who had just started his second term in office, declared in a press conference from Palace of Government that “If the State loses this trial, Peru will go bankrupt.”

A similar statement came from Mercedes Cabanillas, the Congress Speaker. Both Garcia and she lied to public opinion. For instance, they said the lawsuit had been started in Lima’s north section, at a “fixed” tribunal, when in all truth, the charges had been pressed before the Supreme Court, as befits a contentious administrative lawsuit. At the time, the remunerations in the Judiciary were being reviewed downwards. Hon. Walter Vásquez Bejarano, President of the Supreme Court, said they were under even greater pressure than during the Fujimori epoch. A few days later, they voted five to zero against us.

After six years of litigation, there was no certain or foreseeable road ahead. Justice in Peru had gone into a bizarre black hole.

The rule of law had once again been trampled by the Executive Branch.

One year later, we were hit again: Alan García illegally declared a 200 hectare property owned by my father’s company was intangible. The harassment was obvious. We were caught unawares by the presidential statements. Then, my father suffered an unexpected stroke. García thought his abuse would have no consequence. My sister, keeper of my father and my family’s investments, clearly saw there was no legal path to be taken in Peru, and that international tribunals were our last resort.

Liquidation was a very important piece to understand the events.

With the assistance of Enrique Ghersi Esq. and a team of lawyers from his law firm, we managed a first instance judge to give us the information we requested, supported by the Habeas Data decision from the Constitutional Court.

For eight months, the Banking Superintendency refused to obey the court’s orders. They appealed and delayed to comply with the court’s decision by filing with the Superior Court. This behavior has not changed until now and the SBS’s abusive and suspicious behavior has prevented knowing what finally happened to hundreds of millions of dollars from BNM’s portfolio and how the liquidators behaved.

Several criminal charges were pressed against us in as many courtrooms. We were impeded from leaving the country and we ran a huge risk to be sent to jail. We were emotionally abused, threatened by the courts, but we never abandoned our legitimate objective. If we had been guilty.

So, in a brief lapse of time and while we were forced to negotiate with BIF, SBS filed criminal charges simultaneously in the 6th, 17th, 37th, 41st, 8th, 28th, 33rd, 21st, and 42nd Criminal Courtrooms and before the 10th Criminal Prosecutor’s Office. We were charged with several crimes, including fraud, providing false information, performing non-authorized financial intermediation, omission, resisting authority, crimes against the financial and monetary order, and others.

Obviously, there was a wish to destroy us, overwhelm us and create a rarified atmosphere before public opinion. The media, always prone to sensationalism, echoed, whether in extensive reports or short articles, the authorities’ illegal arguments. Every time a decision had to be voted, senior citizens declared to the media they had lost their only source of sustenance at the hands of a band of criminal fraudsters. The marching orders were clear. We either accepted meekly to hand over the Bank, or we would be sent to jail.

By mid-2008, the Fourth Special Courtroom of the Lima District for Free Defenders, ordered the definitive filing of these lawsuits, for lack of merit were declared innocent under all charges. The lawsuit had reached its last instance and concluded, and the case moved to the “res judicata” or final decision category.

Surprisingly though, in March 2009, a complaint was filed before a judge by an individual who was not a party to the proceedings. However, the recourse was illegally accepted and filed before the Supreme Court not as an incident but as a full-fledged docket. In other words, far from complying with the order of definitive filing as “res judicata” now the lawsuit would go to the Supreme Court and may be reactivated. A Damocles sword hung over our heads one more time. An illicit act was validated. It was the world upside down. Laws in Peru were not for us. Without checks and balances, without rule of law and judges perverting the course of justice, we lived in the realm of darkness.