A member of the Bank Espírito Santo family who tried to warn of irregularities at the bank before it collapsed, owing billions of euros, has died, following a long illness.
José Maria Ricciardi, 71, described himself at one of the hearings into what happened at the bank as “the only person who tried to change the course of things.” Indeed, there were two attempts to remove him from his roles within the group – plus alleged pressure “to be in solidarity with the family” over “falsified accounts” which eventually led to the bank’s implosion, he stressed.
Lusa describes the former chair of the BESI investment bank BESI as “one of the members of the Espírito Santo family who challenged and criticised the leadership of his cousin, Ricardo Salgado”.
He told a parliamentary inquiry that Salgado’s management was “bad”. Salgado was the head of BES at the time and is currently facing legal proceedings, albeit very debilitated through Alzheimer’s disease.
“There was a progressive lack of credibility among many employees because there were practices that were, at the very least, ethically reprehensible,” Ricciardi said at the time, adding that “losses were happening and, instead of being put on the table, they were possibly disguised”.
BES’ ultimate collapse was arguably one of the worst financial scandals in Portugal’s history. Even worse is that 12 years on, “none of the seven cases that emerged from its downfall have reached the end of their judgement, in a trajectory marked by prolonged investigations and conflicts of competency between courts”, wrote ECO online, earlier this year. This has left hundreds of ‘small investors’ who lost, in some cases, their life savings, still horribly out of pocket.
source material: LUSA
