Oceanational Motor, SA owned by the former Formula 1 driver Tiago Monteiro (pictured) and the businessman José Guedes have filed a lawsuit against the Portuguese Government, demanding compensation of a minimum of €9.4 million for material and non-material damages.
At issue is the failure of the financial support agreement between Oceanational and the José Sócrates’ government for €6 million. The current government says it is nothing to do with them as there is no contract.
In July 2008 the Secretary of State for Youth and Sport, Laurentino Dias, agreed to finance a team from Oceanational.
The money was to fund the entry of an Oceanational team in GP2 championships, one level below Formula 1, as a way of promoting the Algarve’s Autodrome and the return of Formula 1 to Portugal.
The Government agreed to fund Oceanational with €2 million a year for three years chanelled through Parkalgar, the company that developed the Autodrome circuit. The Sócrates government was keen on the race track and authorised its construction in the Algarve countryside giving it PIN status which enabled the developer to avoid most of the normal planning restrictions relating to countryside areas.
The sponsorship deal was deemed illegal by the Court of Auditors, so as the Government was not allowed directly to fund the racing team, it did so through Parkalgar.
The full €6 million did not arrive thus causing the Monteiro racing team losses and subsequent debts.
Laurentino Dias said that the Sócrates’ government had not had any involvement in the sponsorship, adding that there was no kind of commitment, guarantee or protocol. However, documents exchanged between commercial parties and Laurentino Dias were handed to the then Deputy Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Miguel Relvas and Alexandre Mestre, the Secretary of State for Sport and Youth who left his job in April 2013 - these documents proved Dias was being economic with the truth.
In October 2008 Laurentino Dias sent an email to Oceanational stating that the support will be provided through Parkalgar, to a maximum value of €2 million a year for three years, according to the Publico newspaper.
Dias is quotes as saying "I never took any responsibility in this process. My attitude on behalf of the state was always to be helpful to the limits of what was possible. I tried to create a good situation for Parkalgar and Oceanational, but these companies never had, or could have, on my part, any expectation that the state could help them or fund them." This too was an interesting version of the truth as the state clearly had agreed the €6 million.
The full amount of sponsorship money did not reach Parkalgar and Oceanational lost out and now wants compensation for the losses incurred and lodged a lawsuit against the state in Oporto court in September 2013.
The illicit government support was laid out in an emailed memo sent by the former government to Tiago Monteiro and José Guedes in October 2008, it read:
"The support to be granted to this company (Oceanational) in the terms and conditions to be agreed with Parkalgar, will be in the amount of two million euros per sports season, for the next three seasons, and this also is to help support the framework of the race track."
However the only contract signed between the State and Parkalgar was to help with specific sporting events at the Autodrome, according to official documents consulted by Publico.
Oceanational borrowed money from Banif on the strength of its sponsorship deal with the government, some €1.5 million in January 2009.
Of the €6 million pledged by the Government, the Monteiro/Guedes team received €1,051,534, leaving nearly €5 million agreed, yet undelivered according to the court petition.
Another give away that the government had indeed pledged €6 million over three years is to be found in a letter sent to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, dated in January, 2012 where Parkalgar calls on the government to pay for the amounts so far spent by Oceanational, suggesting that the state pays Oceanational directly ‘as per the agreement.’
