Jobless Spaniard Ordered to Repay €12,000 for Secret Morocco Trips While on Benefits

An unemployed person was ordered to reimburse over 12,000 euros in unemployment benefits wrongly received from the Public Employment Service (SEPE) for having traveled to Morocco without notifying the institution.
According to the regulations in force in Spain, any person receiving unemployment benefits must inform the Public Employment Service (SEPE) of all their trips, including trips abroad, under penalty of losing this right. But the defendant did not comply with this requirement, which led to his conviction by the Supreme Court. The man, who was receiving unemployment benefits, will have to reimburse more than 12,000 euros to the SEPE for having traveled to Morocco several times in February 2016 without notifying the agency, as reported by El Economista.
The convicted person was in Morocco from January 1 to February 3, 2016 to, he said, support his brother who had been the victim of a serious accident on December 30 and had eventually succumbed to his injuries on January 15. But he had failed to inform the SEPE of this trip. It was not until August 2018 that he contacted the agency to request the resumption of the allowance. That’s when the SEPE discovered that he had traveled to Morocco in January 2016, and initiated the process to request the reimbursement of the 12,595.66 euros paid to the person concerned between January 2016 and August 2018.
Opposing this process, the man appealed to the Madrid court, which ruled in favor of the SEPE, arguing that any trip abroad of more than 15 days must be notified to the agency and that failure to comply with this obligation can result in sanctions ranging from temporary suspension to permanent termination of the benefit. Dissatisfied with the decision, the person concerned appealed to the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM), which only confirmed the reimbursement of the days spent outside of Spain without notifying the SEPE.
The agency, in turn, appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the TSJM’s decision, ordering the defendant to reimburse the 12,595.66 euros wrongly received under Article 25.3 of the Law on Infractions and Sanctions in the Social Order (LISOS), which defines as a serious offense "the failure to notify [...] the loss of benefits at the time when situations determining the incompatibility, suspension or termination of the right occur."
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