Spanish Auditors Question Payments Across Seven Cancer Centre Contracts

Spain's Court of Auditors has raised questions about possible payments for services that were not actually delivered under seven contracts at the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), according to a review of the centre's 2022–2024 finances approved on 29 October 2026 and released the next day. The finding is an audit warning, not a judicial determination that money was stolen or that any contractor committed fraud.

The 12-page official summary of audit report No. 1,701 describes overlapping or partly duplicated tasks and indications of possible payments not corresponding to services actually performed in seven open-tender service contracts. Auditors examined a sample covering 63.13% of service contracts subject to harmonised procurement rules. They also flagged relationships of interest between two companies awarded two service contracts, insufficient justification in contract files and weak monitoring of contracted work. The report does not establish that every contract or payment was improper.

The auditors said the centre used smaller contracts inappropriately for recurring and foreseeable service needs. In 67 instances, it awarded smaller service contracts to firms already holding openly tendered service contracts without the required explanation of need or an applicable exemption. The report also described a loss of traceability for orders under framework agreements that prevented full verification of prices in the sample. These are specific procurement-control findings; they should not be converted into a total for criminal losses.

The CNIO disputes the implication that it paid for work never done. According to its submissions described in the audit and reported by Spanish outlet El Español on 31 October, management characterised some shortcomings as formal documentation problems, said overlapping paperwork did not necessarily mean duplicated work, and argued that differences between building-entry records and invoiced hours could reflect remote work. Its management also cited staffing restrictions as a reason for outsourcing services.

The Court of Auditors expressly acknowledged the centre's reported corrective initiatives. It said those measures were directed toward better procurement management and could strengthen controls. The review also found that the centre's translational-research agreements generally complied with applicable rules, while identifying weaknesses in personnel policy and the absence of a strategic plan after 2023.

An auditor's identification of possible unperformed services is a serious reason to check invoices, access logs, deliverables and contract supervision records, but it is not itself a finding that named individuals intentionally diverted funds. No amount of confirmed loss for the seven contracts is established by the summary reviewed here.

For the next stage of reporting, the outstanding documents are the individual contract and payment schedules, evidence of work completed or performed remotely, the centre's full formal response and any subsequent oversight or prosecutorial decisions. The immediate public-interest finding is the auditors' documented concern and the centre's substantive rebuttal, not an unproved wider fraud allegation.