At the request of the Administrative Court No. 2 of Palma, I was appointed as a computer expert in ordinary proceedings.
These proceedings involved a local administrative entity and a community construction company, represented by the law firm Manubens. The purpose of the expert assessment requested of me was to determine the delivery date of an administrative notification made by Correos y Telégrafos. The administrative notification issued by Correos y Telégrafos was controversial, as two delivery certificates had been submitted in the judicial proceedings, issued by Correos y Telégrafos, showing different delivery dates. These facts led the defendant to appoint a computer expert to prepare an expert report.
Under this scenario, it was necessary to access different documentation from the computer systems operated by Correos y Telégrafos and involved in the management or processing of the administrative notification and the delivery certificates submitted.
This work took longer than initially anticipated, as any inquiry had to be made through official channels, which included the aforementioned court and the Institutional Relations Department of Correos y Telégrafos. Despite all the cooperation provided, it was necessary to organize an in-person meeting at the Correos y Telégrafos offices in Madrid, in order to conduct various interviews with technical managers and allow a more direct audit of the information and systems under study.
The administrative notification was issued using a computer system owned by Correos y Telégrafos. However, during the performance of this expert examination, this system had been migrated to a new application, so it was not possible to access the information traces in the original computer system. Another element that hindered the investigation was the information retention periods of the custody services linked to the administrative notification.
Even with all these difficulties, an exhaustive study was conducted, contrasting evidence from different data sources in order to compile a foundation of indicators on which to base subsequent work. Thus, it was necessary to understand the operation of a wide range of computer systems involved, so that the circumstances that caused the recording of two delivery attempts of the administrative notification requested by said local entity could be substantiated.
The conclusions contained in my expert report demonstrated that an initial unsuccessful delivery attempt of the notification had been made, confirmed by the fact that one of the notifications had not been generated through the corresponding corporate computer system, but rather through a template completed using a text editor from an office suite.
Upon completion of the expert report and its incorporation into the proceedings, I ratified it in person, responding during the hearing to questions raised by the attorneys for both parties.
