The courts have still not defined the sale of SanCor's assets, even though the Rafaela appeals court ratified the tender terms with eight interested parties. Production is sporadic and the 178 active workers are paid incomplete salaries with no full health coverage.
The situation at SanCor Cooperativas Unidas Limitada shows no concrete progress. Nearly a month and a half after the Civil and Labor Appeals Court of Rafaela returned to Judge Marcelo Gelcich the authority to set new tender dates for the sale of the assets of the bankrupt dairy cooperative, the wait has continued since September 18 with no sign of an imminent decision. The process still has eight interested parties.
The ruling signed by Drs. Hail, Lorenzetti and Álvarez Tremea broadly ratified the tender terms, rejected the requests for annulment and set out a series of guidelines aimed at guaranteeing greater transparency and speed in the final stage, above all to facilitate the collection of claims by workers, suppliers and other parties affected by the bankruptcy. According to the court, delays in liquidating the assets erode their value and postpone the "satisfaction of claims of a subsistence nature."
Among the changes introduced, the appeals court allowed offers to be paid in pesos at the Banco Nación seller's exchange rate and no longer only in dollars; it upheld the ban on acquiring assets through third parties or with outside funds; it ordered objective evaluation criteria to be established before the opening of envelopes; and it confirmed the possibility of set-off for creditors with real guarantees.
The judges kept the Sunchales plant and the Mendicrim and Santa Brígida brands within the tender process, despite the litigation over their ownership. To safeguard the rights in dispute, they determined that part of the price obtained be deposited in a judicial account until a final ruling is issued on those assets. They also rejected the challenges filed by one of the trustees and by various bidders.
SanCor maintains a direct relationship with 178 workers, although the cumulative job impact exceeds 2,500 people laid off at different stages of the crisis. Those still employed have gone some four months without receiving pay slips; the most recent ones recorded a deduction for low production, so the payments made every two weeks do not cover the full amount that each salary should be. Some workers say they are being paid half of what they should receive. No premiums are paid for night shifts, weekend work or work on public holidays.
With no clarity on how the funds are administered or how products are moving, workers are left without consistent benefits from the health insurance scheme: they have some certainty only as regards emergencies or a few specific specialties, but for months they have had no coverage for standard monitoring, prevention or health treatment services.
In recent weeks, some SanCor-branded products have been seen in stores and at distributors in different parts of the country: cheese, dulce de leche, butter and cream made at the Balnearia and Devoto plants, the most active in recent years. Production is sporadic.
The Atilra union has pulled away from its relationship with the workers and has done nothing but complicate the situation, teaming up and falling out with supposed investors. It is now reportedly trying to promote one specific company, with no answers for those who are paid poorly, have been laid off or are waiting for year-old promises to be kept. It also emerged that the law firm that was promoting a supposed associative exit — with investors holding 51% of the proposal identified as the union's favorites — has reportedly set the initiative aside.
The delay, described as arbitrary, is hard to understand for a process that was already organized for June, and it also affects the tender of another bankrupt dairy company, Alimentos Refrigerados SA (ARSA), which shares many of the same prospective buyers.
Beyond the producers left stranded with debts, the service providers, the state and its taxes and the banks, it is the workers who despair during this period of paralysis in the case. It is not only the 178 still employed or the roughly 1,500 laid off in the last two years, but a group of 4,500 people who in 2001 were part of what was then SanCor, when Héctor Ponce took over the national secretariat at Atilra. The cooperative was pushed into bankruptcy, but a resolution still appears distant.
