José María Ruiz Mateos

Jose Maria Ruiz Mateos is a Spanish businessman.

He began by exporting wine to England. He founded the conglomerate Rumasa and had a lot of influence in Spanish society. In 1983, the government of Spain (the Socialist Party was in office at the time and led by Felipe González) expropriated the company in 1983. The government alleged that Rumasa had failed to pay millions of dollars in mandatory taxes to the national treasury. The government also claimed that Rumasa was in virtual bankruptcy and that it was still afloat thanks solely to imaginative accounting by the auditing department of the company. Ruiz Mateos disagreed with this assessment. He sued the government for compensation, but has yet to win in court.

He was imprisoned on charges of currency smuggling, fraud and tax evasion. [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03EED71F38F930A35751C1A963948260] After several years in jail, he went back into public life, became the owner of the Rayo Vallecano football (soccer) team, and attempted to enter politics with his own political party.

Ruíz Mateos was acquitted in 1999 by the Spanish Supreme Court [http://www.cincodias.com/articulo/empresas/Rumasa/colea/lustros/despues/cdsemp/20030222cdscdiemp_9/Tes/] .

He was a well-known member of Opus Dei, though he was later expelled from the group.

Ruíz mateos is the father of 13 sons and daughters [http://www.elmundo.es/nuevaeconomia/2005/262/1108854001.html] .

References

*Ramón Tamames. "La economía española : 1975-1995"
*"La colmena", internal magazine of the Rumasa.

External links

* [http://www.ruiz-mateos.com/ Jose María Ruíz Mateos]