Goldman Sachs Sued by Spain’s J. Garcia Carrion Over Forex Deals

(Bloomberg) -- Spanish winemaker, J. Garcia Carrion SA, is suing Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in a criminal court over the sale of derivatives contracts the firm used to manage its foreign exchange exposure. 

The U.S. firm “deficiently commercialized speculative derivatives to a non-expert client,” taking advantage of the disloyal behaviour of a former executive, the Spanish firm said in a statement Thursday. The bank presented itself in the court in the southern Spanish city of Jumilla, according to the statement.

The criminal procedure is part of a broader scandal involving at least three banks and allegations by several Spanish companies that they were missold foreign exchange instruments. Garcia Carrion had previously made public that it incurred deep losses from hedging products it acquired from Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank AG and BNP Paribas SA. 

Goldman Sachs says that Garcia Carrion failed to make certain payments. The bank started legal proceedings against the winemaker in late 2020 in English court. 

“For years J Garcia Carrion S.A. profited without complaint from its use of FX derivatives with Goldman Sachs to manage its international currency exposure. It also published details of its derivatives activity in its audited accounts;” Goldman Sachs said in a statement Thursday. “The company’s refusal to make the payments due under the transactions in 2020 on the basis that these transactions were unknown to it and were beyond its capacity and authority was unjustifiable and left us with no option but to commence legal proceedings to recover the amount owed.”

Garcia Carrion had in June filed a complaint against Goldman with the U.K. financial regulator. In that complaint, the winemaker alleged that the bank “incited the sale of unauthorized speculative derivatives unconnected to Garcia Carrion’s business, with obscure implicit fees, and without regard to the relevant regulation relating to communicating risks and the volume of the client’s business,” a spokesman for the company said in an emailed statement.

In January, the winemaker had filed a lawsuit in the U.K., and had also named the bank in a Spanish civil suit. 

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