Litigation windfall could rake in €4 billion for government

The Supreme Court has asked Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón for his help in collecting some four billion euros the government has won in different litigations, but has not yet been able to bring in.

Justice José Manuel Sieira, chief of the court's administrative acts review section, has also asked Gallardón for help in relieving the caseload work.

In 2011, the Supreme Court collected some 1.7 billion euros from different sentences that were favorable to the government. In 2010, the justices denounced that there were some six billion euros still uncollected, but which were blocked by heavy caseload work at the different court levels.

Sieira has asked the Justice chief to begin looking at ways to ease the caseload work and help collect the "money that the government badly needs," say court sources.

Sources tell EL PAÍS that the government could collect by the end of this year some four billion euros from the 2,265 lawsuits it has filed in different courts. Some of these cases involve tax disputes with citizens at the local and regional levels.

One such case involves appeals by BBVA against the government on a tax sanction decision that involves some 104 million euros.