Nicaragua’s state-run Water and Sewage Company, ENACAL, this week embargoed several properties and vehicles from Spanish electricity provider Unión Fenosa as collateral for a $1 million debt, according to Unión Fenosa’s spokesman Jorge Katín.
The “preventive embargo” was executed Monday with orders from a judge from the Third Civil Court of Managua.
Unión Fenosa has warned that any similar attempts to embargo company bank accounts would plunge the country back into another electricity crisis.
The government last August embargoed property belonging to U.S. oil company Esso Standard Oil in a tax payment dispute that later served as leverage in high-stakes round of business negotiations.
Katín, however, thinks that in this case ENACAL might be acting along because the Sandinista government has already negotiated a deal to buy 16% of Unión Fenosa.
“I don’t think the government would need to do this type of thing,” he told The Nica Times.
