José María Ruiz Mateos

José María Ruiz Mateos ( born April 14, 1931 in Rota ) is a Spanish businessman.

During the tenure Felipe González ' his consortium Rumasa was nationalized in 1983 by the Spanish government. Since then, Ruiz Mateos has led several lawsuits to challenge the expropriation.

Biography

Ruiz Mateos studied at the Escuela de Comercio de Jerez. He began his business career as a very young wine exporter to the UK. Together with his brothers he founded the holding company Rumasa. At the time of expropriation in 1983, the group consisted of 700 companies, had about 65,000 employees and an annual turnover of 350 billion pesetas. The government justified the expropriation, with the risk of a collapse of the group by the constant uncontrollable purchase of other companies and the resulting risk to the overall economy of Spain.

Ruiz Mateos left Spain in 1983, but was delivered in 1985 by the Federal Republic of Germany to Spain, where he was charged with currency offenses, fraud and embezzlement.

He was a member of Opus Dei.

After his release from prison, he founded his own party, with which he was elected in 1989 in the European Parliament.

There were still several lawsuits against Ruiz Mateos. 1995 sentenced the Audiencia Provincial de Madrid because of " concealment of assets " to 3 years in prison.

Ruiz Mateos formed a new holding company, Nueva Romasa.

On 17 February 2011 the 10 largest companies in the Nueva Rumasa group were declared insolvent. In 2012, another indictment against Ruiz Mateos running. He is accused of having withdrawn money from Nueva Romasa to fund the " high standard of living " of his family in this way.

• Contractor (Spain )
• Born in 1931
• Man