On February 7, the former commercial director of Cofely, a Spanish subsidiary of Engie, confessed to judicial authorities that the company “had a specific fund to bribe public officials from several municipalities in exchange of the award of energy efficiency contracts”, according to El País. Le Figaro indicates that the kickbacks – from 2% to 3% of the total contract’s worth – were distributed to a dozen Spanish cities’ officials, from contracts representing a total amount of 300 million euros. On February 9, another ex-director of Cofely declared that the Cofely’s Managing Director at the time, was aware of such practices and that “Spanish managers of Cofely had to inform the headquarters in Paris of all the projects that exceeded 500,000 euros and had to ask for their signature for those that were over one million euros”.
This case is a branch of the Punica Operation, which started in Spain in 2014 and revealed a large corruption scheme in the attribution of public contracts involving Spanish politicians, mostly members of the Partido Popular. Official investigations started in 2014 and according to El Español, ” Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office expects to be able to present its report to the judge soon for the trial to begin “.