Banco Económico, which succeeded the former Banco Espírito Santo Angola (BESA), asked to be an assistant in the case against Ricardo Salgado, Álvaro Sobrinho and three other former administrators and wants compensation of more than four billion euros.
The request to be appointed as an assistant in the process, which involves crimes of misappropriation, laundering and embezzlement, was sent to the Central Criminal Instruction Court (TCIC) on the 10th and highlights that the Public Ministry’s accusation reveals a causal link between BESA’s losses — which were transferred to Banco Econômico created in October 2014, after the collapse of Grupo Espírito Santo (GES) — and the conduct of the defendants.
A source linked to the process told Lusa that the objective of this initiative is to “recover reputation and go after those responsible” for the collapse of BESA, as Banco Económico considers itself “injured by the situation”, by inheriting the assets of the extinct BESA, liquidated after 2014 with a high non-performing loan portfolio, estimated at 5.7 billion dollars (5.21 billion euros).
The Angolan State then took control of the financial institution and made a capital injection of three billion dollars (2.7 billion euros), which was declared insolvent.
Banco Económico – which emerged on October 20, 2014 after the National Bank of Angola (BNA) decided to apply a set of extraordinary sanitation measures to BESA – also asked to be an assistant in the BES/GES process, the biggest case of the so-called Universo Espírito Santo and whose trial began last Tuesday at the Lisbon Central Criminal Court.
A source linked to Banco Económico justified the legal steps now taken with the behavior of the BES administration, which held the majority (55%) of BESA’s capital in 2014.
The request to establish Banco Económico as an assistant in the process linked to BESA is signed by lawyer Nuno Silva Vieira, who also represents close to 2 thousand injured parties in the BES/GES process. Contacted by Lusa, the representative confirmed that he was representing the former BESA here, rejected any conflict of interest between the defense of the injured parties and Banco Económico, but refused to make further comments.
The accusation in the BESA case was announced in July 2022 and concerns the granting of financing by BES to BESA, in Interbank Monetary Market (MMI) credit lines and bank overdrafts. Due to this allegedly criminal activity, on July 31, 2014, BES was exposed to BESA worth approximately 4.8 billion euros.
In July 2024, the TCIC sentenced Álvaro Sobrinho to trial for 18 crimes of aggravated breach of trust (five of which were co-authored) and five of money laundering, and the former president of BES, Ricardo Salgado, of five crimes of abuse of trust and one of qualified fraud (all co-authored).
Amílcar Morais Pires was sentenced for five crimes of abuse of trust and another of embezzlement (all in co-authorship), Helder Bataglia will answer for one crime of abuse of trust and another of embezzlement (both in co-authorship), and Rui Silveira for a crime of fraud.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
