126. The Court recalls that, under the provisions of article 31 of Law 17,613, two
rights should be granted to those who complied with the said requirements: (i)
recognition as a creditor of the Banco de Montevideo or the Banco La Caja Obrera, based
on which they became proportional shareholders in the Asset Recovery Fund of the
respective bank for the nominal amount that it had been determined was transferred
without their consent, and (ii) the right to receive from the State a complement to their
proportional share up to (between their own share and the complement provided by the
State) a nominal maximum amount of US$100,000.00 (one hundred thousand United
States dollars) or its equivalent in other currencies. This last right was recognized to
them, because it was considered that their situation was the same as that of the
depositors with a checking, savings or fixed term account (supra para. 97).
127. In addition to stipulating these rights, the said article 31 created: a special
procedure to deal with the petitions of those who considered that they fulfilled the
corresponding requirements; and called for the establishment of a technical committee
(the Advisory Commission) responsible for examining the petitions and advising the
Board of the Central Bank of Uruguay, the administrative body that had to adopt the
corresponding decisions (supra paras. 77 and 79). The norms contained in the Central
Bank’s Administrative Rules of Procedure would be applied in this special procedure,
while the General Procedural Code would be applied to the assessment of evidence
(supra para. 83).
128. The Court emphasizes that the body of evidence does not show that the remedies
available under the ordinary justice system, which decided the actions against the Banco
de Montevideo, could apply article 31 of Law 17,613 and determine the rights
established therein (infra para. 226). This determination needed to be made by the
administrative body responsible for the said procedure, which was created especially to
respond to the claims of those persons who allegedly complied with the requirements of
the said norm.
B.1) Material aspect of the right to be heard in the procedure
before the administrative body (the Central Bank)
Arguments of the parties
129. The Court finds that several arguments of the Inter-American Commission and of
the representatives are addressed at questioning the effectiveness of the special
administrative procedure because it did not allow an adequate examination of the
requirement of consent, which they consider to be an essential element for analysis in
the procedure under article 31 of Law 17,613. The Court considers that the violations
alleged should be examined in relation to the right to be heard in the procedure before
the Central Bank.
130. In this regard, the Inter-American Commission argued that the presumption of
consent by the Advisory Commission contradicts the principle of the “material truth” of
the administrative due process, “making the special remedy created by Congress to
resolve this situation illusory and its very existence ineffective.” According to the InterAmerican Commission, the Advisory Commission did not take into account that many of
the certificates were renewed without the client’s consent, because the General Manager
of the Banco de Montevideo gave “instructions [to the Banco de Montevideo branch
managers] that they should automatically renew all the deposits in order to avoid a
hemorrhage of funds.” In addition, it indicated that the Advisory Commission made its
decisions without analyzing the existence of fraud which, at the time, had been publicly
denounced and had resulted in criminal proceedings against the bank’s owners and
officers.
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