Hotesur-Los Sauces: Kirchner family corruption cases to be heard in single trial

Argentina’s Federal Criminal Cassation Court has ruled that the ‘Hotesur’ and ‘Los Sauces’ corruption cases must be heard in a single trial, starting this Friday, October 23, overturning a previous court decision to hold separate proceedings.

The investigations, now unified in a single casefile, concern allegations of money-laundering, illicit association and corruption linked to the Hotesur and Los Sauces hotel chains in Patagonia, southern Argentina, which are both owned by the family of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Prosecutors allege that the hotels were used to channel kickbacks linked to multi-million-dollar public works contracts awarded to businessman Lázaro Báez, an ally of the Kirchner family. 

In return, Báez allegedly paid substantial bills for hotel rooms that were never occupied, prosecutors say. 

The defendants facing trial include Máximo Kirchner, Cristina Kirchner’s son, alongside businessmen and former officials. 

A total of 25 defendants are involved in the proceedings. Her daughter, Florencia Kirchner, was excluded from the trial after the court ruled that she lacked decision-making authority in the companies under investigation.

The charges were initially dismissed by judges Daniel Obligado and Adrián Grümberg, but the Federal Criminal Appeals Court overturned that decision and ordered a trial. 

Aregntina’s Supreme Court subsequently upheld the ruling.

The latest decision was adopted by a majority of Chamber I of the Federal Criminal Cassation Court, with judges Daniel Antonio Petrone and Diego G. Barroetaveña voting in favour, while Alejandro Slokar dissented.

The court upheld appeals lodged by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the UIF money-laundering watchdog, overturning the decision to split the proceedings and partially setting aside the separate trial date previously scheduled for Hotesur.

The Los Sauces trial had been scheduled to begin at 10am this Friday (October 23), while the Hotesur proceedings had been set for March 19, 2027. Following the Cassation Court’s ruling, both cases will be heard together from Friday.

Judge Petrone argued that the decision to split the trials had not been adequately justified and that the connection between the two cases stemmed from legal considerations concerning the rules governing multiple offences, rather than mere procedural convenience.

The judge said organisational difficulties, the number of witnesses and the expected length of the proceedings were insufficient grounds to change the joint-trial arrangement established years earlier. Instead, such challenges should be addressed through specific measures to organise the trial.

Barroetaveña backed that position, arguing that the oral court’s ruling relied on superficial and dogmatic reasoning and undermined the case theory advanced by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the private prosecution.

In his dissenting opinion, Slokar proposed declaring the appeals inadmissible, arguing that the oral court’s decision concerned procedural arrangements for the trial which, as a general rule, fall within the remit of the trial court.