The contract between the state-owned company Parvalorem and Christie's auction house for the sale of the Miró collection now has been received at the Court of Auditors.
According to the communication office of the Court, the contract which contains a confidentiality clause as insisted on by the auction house, "was referred to the Court and was received on Monday."
Last week in parliament opposition MPs raised questions about the nature of the contract and said it should be inspected by the Court of Auditors after the Secretary of the Treasury, Isabel Castelo Branco, claiming the contract "did not represent a penny of expense for the State," admitted that the deal had not yet been reviewed by the Court as legally required.
The paperwork now has been sent and a review will be set against the background of an agreed €32 million reserve at auction and a €50 million cash offer from an Angolan millionaire which has for some reason was rejected by the government even though his conditions included a 50 year period of public access to the collection in Oporto.
It is widely suspected that Christie’s has a deal whereby if the artwork fails to sell it will be allowed to sell the collection in its own time to private buyers as long as it pays the €32 million reserve price to the Portuguese state.
Such emerging details have meant the government has hidden behind the confidentiality clause which it claims was insisted on by Christie's. Now that the documentation has been forwarded to the Court of Auditors, MPs may soon know the deatils of the deal and the reasons why the €50 million offer was rejected.
