He Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) hides information about the destination of the shares and assets seized from Editora Panamá América, SA (Epasa)which is why the newspaper The Press filed a habeas data action before the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ).
“The information required is related to the actions of a company linked to a matter of high public relevance… It is not due to capricious curiosity, but to the legitimate exercise of the citizen’s right to monitor how the public administration manages assets that have entered the state sphere,” states the habeas data presented on April 23 by the lawyer. Juan Antonio Tejada Londonofrom the firm Tejada Abogados.
“Citizens have the right to know how the State will dispose of that asset, what decisions it has adopted in its capacity as shareholder, who exercises such representation and under what criteria a good is managed whose destiny no longer belongs to the private sphere, but to the state and, therefore, public sphere,” added the lawyer.
The Seized Assets Administration Directorate of the MEF disregarded a request for information from The Press to find out how 40% of Epasa’s shares are being managed, which were delivered to the State as part of the collaboration agreements agreed upon by the Public Ministry with two people prosecuted in the case New Business: Henri Mizrachi and Riccardo Francolinitwo former associates of the former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014).
In a conviction handed down by the criminal judge Baloisa Marquínez, On July 17, 2023, the confiscation of the remaining shares, administration and facilities of Epasa was ordered, given that they were acquired using funds transferred by State contractors to a bank account in the name of the company New Business Services. That basket account received contributions of up to $43.9 million in December 2010, when Martinelli was ruler.
In the investigation it was proven that 60% of Epasa’s shares were in the name of a company, whose final beneficiary was Martinelli.
In this case, the former president was sentenced for money laundering to 128 months in prison and paid a fine of $19.2 million.
Nothing ordered by Judge Marquínez has been executed, despite the fact that the sentence was declared enforceable on March 4, 2024.
What did La Prensa request?
On March 6, 2026, The Press sent four questions to the minister Philip Chapman: since what date the MEF has had the shares; who represents the State before the board of directors of Epasa; What decisions were voted on at a shareholder meeting held on September 30, 2024 and how the MEF participated in the vote to decide the transfer or transfer of the brand or any other Epasa asset.
In accordance with Law 6 of 2002 or Transparency Law, in its article 2, every person has the right to request, “without the need to support any justification or motivation”, the information that is in the possession of the authorities.
But Chapman did not respond. In his place, the director of Administration of Seized Assets, Lorenzo Riverasigned a resolution in which he denied the information requested from Chapman, alleging that it had “restricted access.” Rivera bases his decision on Executive Decree 359 of 2015which creates the Seized Assets Directorate.
Rivera conveniently did not know that, according to paragraph 3 of article 14 of the Transparency Law, the processes carried out by the Public Ministry or the Judicial Branch are only accessible to the parties, “until they are finalized.” The conviction in the New Business case has been in effect for more than two years.
What the MEF ignored
Attorney Tejada, in his habeas data brief, highlighted that an executive regulation cannot dictate a general and automatic reservation, nor serve as a basis to indiscriminately deny information about acts of public management.
He added that the information requested is a consequence of a firm judicial decision and does not deal with intimate, personal or unrelated aspects of the state function, nor about investigative strategies, proceedings, confidential sources or reserved information.
“The closure of the judicial process and its wide publicity, including the seizure and retention of these actions, leaves the secrecy argued for by the institutional resolution without purpose,” and added that all acts of state administration and representation, by their very nature, are subject to publicity, supervision and accountability.
Tejada indicated that the resolution signed by the director of Seized Assets lacks motivation: nowhere does it explain why disclosing the requested information affects a right protected by law, represents a risk or violates any restriction.
Furthermore, if the decision is based on an executive decree from 2015, under that hypothesis, the ordinary period provided for by the Transparency Law for information classified as restricted access is 10 years, so it would have already passed.
Another detail is that the Supreme Court of Justice, in a 2022 ruling, ruled that the existence of a “duly reasoned” resolution that classifies information as restricted access is necessary. Neither the MEF nor the director of Seized Assets have specified when the acts derived from the New Business conviction were classified as such.
The habeas data action must now be examined by the reporting magistrate Olmedo Arrocha.
Who represents the State?
Knowing how the State has acted is especially relevant because, since the New Business ruling became enforceable, at least one meeting of the shareholders’ meeting has been held on September 30, 2024.
In the minutes of that extraordinary meeting, it was noted that the holders of “all” of the issued and outstanding shares with voting rights were present (in person, by teleconference or through proxy), “who waived prior summons.”
By that date, the MEF must have already had, if not 100%, at least 40% of the shares that Mizrachi and Francolini handed over, as part of their agreements with the prosecution. Who represented and voted at that meeting on behalf of the shares in custody of the MEF?
The answer is a mystery.
