Today it was the turn of Jose Maria Ricciardi to face parliament in the inquiry into the BES collapse.
Ricciardi, who famously turned from much loved cousin of Ricardo Salgado, into his arch enemy, did not hesitate today to trash Salgado’s reputation and blame him for an autocratic style of leadership which hastened the demise of the Espírito Santo Group.
“I present myself to this commission of inquiry in the expectation that my testimony may help to establish the truth and to clarify any doubts," thus spake José Maria Ricciardi as he opened in front of the parliamentary commission of inquiry in Lisbon today..
Ricciardi made it clear that he did not "accept collective responsibility" for the management and failure of BES, and that this inquiry should not aim to blame a whole family due to the misdeeds of one member.
"I do not accept what some say, that we all knew this; we all participated, it's not true. This is absolutely false," "Some of us did not know what was going on - at least this is so in my case, for sure."
Ricciardi said, when questioned about his relationship with his dear cousin Ricardo Salgado, "I was seen as a traitor, an informer, the person who made 'trade off' with the Bank of Portugal, and that if it was not my greed for power, Grupo Espírito Santo would still be fine."
Ricciardi said he has lived through two years of total hell due to his efforts to try to change the situation that was developing at Espírito Santo Group, and the aftermath, "I was the only person who tried to change the course of things," adding that last year there were attempts to kick him out, "there were two attempts to put me on the street. First, in November 2013 and later, in June 2014."
Ricciardi considered it "pathetic" to accuse the Bank of Portugal for the collapse of BES, an idea put forward yesterday by his cousin Ricardo Salgado to the parliamentary commission of inquiry.
"This is pathetic. It's the last thing a supervisor wants, above all, when it comes to a bank like Banco Espírito Santo," adding that even with better supervision and better control the risk does not disappear, "If certain people in certain places, want to commit harmful acts, they will continue to commit these acts."
The banker explained that risk can be eliminated with better and more transparent forms of governance but the problems at the top of Grupo Espírito Santo could easily have been resolved if they had been attacked in time.
"It all started with €180 million of ‘errors’ in 2008 and ended up at €3 billion. Initially, it was a subject that was perfectly possible to solve, it is absolutely pathetic to say the Bank of Portugal wanted to destroy BES."
Ricciardi admitted that with hindsight it is clear that BES should have used the line of credit from the Troika to recapitalise, as did their direct competitors BCP, Banco BPI, and Banif, but that Ricardo Salgado decided alone not to use this lifeline.
As for BES Angola, Ricciardi said its chairman Dr. Sobrinho was ‘freewheeling’ and "was not being properly controlled," and that BES Angola did not communicate with anyone except with Ricardo Salgado, despite Ricciardi being in charge of international operations.
Ricciardi said that when he learned that the accounts of Espírito Santo International were falsified, after a KPMG audit on behalf of the Bank of Portugal, he gradually realised the extent of the mismanagement and of the problem, writing for the record that it was known for the first time that the accounts did not correspond to the truth, “I was shocked by this, we needed to know who was responsible for the falsified accounts.”
For Ricciardi, what happened at Espírito Santo Group, was "like having a fire on the fourth floor and instead of putting out the fire, nothing is done and the fire spreads to all the floors."
As the former manager of BES, José Maria Ricciardi said that the bank's leadership and that of the Espírito Santo Group was concentrated in the hands of his cousin, Ricardo Salgado. "Everyone knows that both BES and GES had a completely centralised leadership."
"I am very surprised now to know that no one knew anything and that leadership was completely oblivious to all that was happening," Ricciardi said. In fact the "Group leadership, rather than face the problems, postponed them, concealed them and was making a snowball."
