translated from Spanish: No crisis for Hopin: company linked to the son of Sebastián Piñera already got 3 renewals of public contracts this year

Three purchase orders have left this year from different state institutions to Hopin Chile, the company founded by the son of President Sebastián Piñera, Cristóbal Piñera Morel.
The Directorate of Labour, the Electoral Service (Servel) and more recently the National Consumer Service (Sernac), are the three entities that have renewed their ties with the company, for amounts reaching 20.5; 26.5 and 21 million pesos respectively, as detailed in a medium publication Interference. In total, the three contracts with state agencies total 68 million pesos. Hopin’s positive start of the year, in an environment marked by the uncertainty of the business world puts again the focus of this company linked to the son of President Sebastián Piñera.
While the company stated last year that Cristóbal Piñera fully ceded its 7% stake, and is detached from the firm, the report insists that it has not shown documentation to confirm that it no longer has a link with the company. Moreover, he continues to appear as “secretary” of California-registered parent Hopin Inc.
In fact, the media in question consulted with the Internal Revenue Service (SII) that Hopin Chile and its parent company, Hopin Inc. in the United States, had registered assignments of rights in 2018. The SII replied that it did not record any ownership changes.
Controversial record
Hopin’s name came to light following the inclusion of President Sebastián Piñera’s son Cristóbal Piñera Morel on the Tour to China held by the Representative, where he shared with the highest names of the Chinese tech world. The delegation also included José Tomás Daire, a childhood friend of Cristóbal Piñera and co-founder of Hopin, as part of the 40 entrepreneurs invited by the ProChile agency.
In the midst of this controversy, in May last year it was known that the company founded in 2011 by the President’s son obtained 250 million pesos in contracts under the current Government, with entities such as the Directorate of Labour, the Servel, the Sernac, the In-Tax Service And the Metropolitan Park of Santiago.
The Mostrador also revealed that the company was also awarded the design of an application for mobile phones in the project “Chile tourist destination 2019” of Sernatur. The main argument for his choice was experience in similar projects, where Hopin presented as a reference 37 projects, an important part of which was the same tenders in the public sector that opened the controversy. The company also presented the most expensive proposal of the five projects they nominated, equivalent to more than $93 million.
Happy Bunny
The Investigation of Interference also points out that in 2018, there was a company that did register changes, which in its beginnings, in September 2011, was called Hopin SpA and that in March 2013 was renamed Happy Bunny SpA, in which José Tomás Daire was listed as partner José Tomás Daire -co-founder of Hopin- with Cristóbal Piñera. However, the last deed on this company is July 2018, the date on which the son of the head of state claimed to have disassociated from the company.
But also, in this document was the partner of Cristóbal Piñera’s lawyer, Juan Tomás Turner Fabres, with equal amount of shares, who was on the controversial tour of President Sebastián Piñera to China and in which he was invited by Prochile to various activities.
The background indicates that Piñera Morel ceded her Happy Bunny percentage to her lawyer, Juan Tomás Turner, who has formed several companies on behalf of the President’s son. This happened on March 29, 2018, when he created and became the sole shareholder of Inversiones Oahu and Inversiones Kauai and in which Cristóbal Piñera remained as administrator.

Original source in Spanish

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