A Tarragona investigative court has placed former Spanish finance minister Cristóbal Montoro under formal investigation on seven corruption-related counts, including influence peddling and fraud against the public administration. The judge’s order, issued after lifting a seven-year gag order on the case, accuses Montoro of leading a network inside the Ministry of Finance that rewrote legislation to benefit industrial gas producers such as Air Liquide, Abelló, Messer, Praxair and Carburos Metálicos. According to the court filing, at least 28 former officials and six companies are implicated. Central to the scheme is Equipo Económico—the consultancy Montoro co-founded in 2008—which allegedly collected €779,705 for reports used to justify bespoke tax breaks and regulatory changes approved between 2013 and 2018. Prosecutors say senior civil servants appointed by Montoro helped draft measures that the gas companies themselves partially wrote. In the wake of the indictment, Montoro has resigned his membership in the conservative Partido Popular after party headquarters opened an internal disciplinary procedure. The PP leadership has distanced itself from the probe, while government ministers demanded that the opposition accept political responsibility for what they called a grave case of legislative capture. The investigation remains at an early stage, and no trial date has been set.