In another week of after-shocks surrounding the biggest private banking scandal ever to hit Portugal, Luxembourg lawyers acting for creditors of Espírito Santo Financial Group (ESFG) blame the Bank of Portugal for pushing BES to the brink and causing its collapse.
The lawyers have lodged a court action demanding that the €3.9 billion bailout which divided the bank into two be thrown out altogether.
Their case – put together by Portuguese legal firm PLMJ – has entered Lisbon’s administrative court.
It seeks not only to annul the controversial ‘bailout’ orchestrated by the Bank of Portugal – which saw hundreds of small investors left out in the cold – but also the €2 billion “provision” that the Bank of Portugal demanded of BES a month before its spectacular collapse.
According to Diário Económico, the process states the Bank of Portugal “could not have been unaware” of the devastating consequences of this provision, the amount of which was “exaggerated”.
Describing the news as “another judicial headache” for the bank led by an increasingly pressured Carlos Costa, Ecónomico website reports that the objective of the court action is to lay the groundwork for a claim for damages from the State as well as the national bank.
It comes in a week in which 485 shareholders affected by the collapse have banded together to sue Carlos Costa for gross negligence. A civil action, also seeking damages from the State, has been lodged in the same administrative court.
By NATASHA DONN
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
