variety of domestic judicial proceedings, among which there were still pending criminal actions, contentious-administrative proceedings, and civil remedies. d) The applicable law 33. Law 17.613 on the Restructuring of the Financial System was adopted on December 27, 2002. Inter alia, that law introduced provisions for the liquidation of financial entities (in particular for suspended banks) and it created the Bank Deposit Guarantee Fund for the restructuring of the financial system. In this context, a special administrative remedy was adopted to assist the victims of the bank crisis. Article 31 of this Law created a Special Commission with the mandate to examine the claims of the depositors and find a solution in that respect, provided it could be demonstrated that the claims met all three requirements provided by the law: existence of a prior deposit, transfer to another institution, and lack of consent from the depositor to carry out the transfer. Article 31 of said law states: Let the Central Bank of Uruguay be empowered to grant those depositors of Banco de Montevideo and La Caja Obrera, whose deposits were transferred to other institutions without their consent the same rights as the other depositors of said banks. To that end and by a justified act, the Central Bank of Uruguay shall create a Commission,, which shall issue its opinion within an extendable time limit of 60 days. 34. On December 31, 2002, the Central Bank ordered the dissolution and liquidation of the Banco de Montevideo, the Banco Comercial, and La Caja Obrera, and created a Bank Capital Recovery Fund for each of the aforesaid banks. 35. This Article 31 Commission went into operation on February 1, 2003. The Committee had an extendable time limit of 60 days to issue its opinion on the situation of the accounts of each of the depositors who were allegedly defrauded by the Banco de Montevideo. Despite the apparent deadline, the Commission continued operating until the end of 2004. Whenever the Special Commission denied a claim, the Board of Directors of the Central Bank had to confirm the rejection. The Board of Directors of the Central Bank concluded the process which lasted from December 30, 2003 to December 28, 2005.10 the first resolution was adopted on December 30, 2003 and the last one was adopted on December 28, 2005. This remedy functioned as follows: - The depositors submit their claims together with the documents that accredit their status; - The Committee evaluates each case and presents its opinion to the Central Bank; - The Board of Directors of the Central Bank (headquarters) approves the report and returns it to the Commission; At that stage a list is made public of those who will recoup their funds and those who will not; - The depositors have 15 days to appeal. They may submit the appeal themselves or through an attorney. The Commission reviews the cases appealed and amends or ratifies the earlier decision in a report submitted to the Central Bank. - The Board of Directors of the Central Bank (headquarters) issues a final ruling within 30 days. 36. The Banco de Montevideo depositors who did not agree to transfer their funds offshore had to prove their refusal in order to recover their money. The petitioners said that the consent of the Banco de Montevideo depositors, whose savings ended up on Grand Cayman, did not exist because it was vitiated by the fraudulent actions of the employees and officers of the Banco de Montevideo. 10 Information provided by the State in its response dated September 15, 2006 in an annexed report from the Central Bank of Uruguay. 9