The sale agreement for TAP, signed on June 24th amid much government rejoicing, does not mean that Gateway owns 66% of TAP.
This sale can be agreed only after Brussels has given its opinion and after the Civil Aviation Authority and Portugal's Competition Authority have approved the new ownership proposal which seems now to be no more than that - a proposal.
This situation is being exploited by Germán Efromovich, miffed at not winning the privatisation race for TAP, who has instructed his lawyers to submit a detailed complaint to Brussels in an attempt to thwart the sale of the airline to Gateway.
One repercussion of this delayed sale is that state body Parpública is sticking to the rules when it comes to TAP spending with any amount over €1 million having to have special authorisation.
Parpública said today that "the TAP group has public company status with attendant legal and statutory obligations" until the completion of the sales process.
This means the management of TAP has to ask permission from the state to spend €1 million or more of public money or to borrow over €10 million.
In addition, the management of TAP can’t increase payroll costs, enter into new employment agreements or change existing ones without receiving the green light from Parpública.
Parpública says that the TAP group is a public company until the conclusion of the process of selling up to 66% of the capital to Gateway, owned by of businessmen Humberto Pedrosa and David Neeleman.
Efromovich’s last ditch attempt to scupper the sale rests on his contention that Neeleman is non-European yet controls Gateway through a profit share agreement and a specially devised board configuration that gives Neeleman power over Pedrosa, despite Pedrosa owning the majority of Gateway.
These are not futile points and Brussels may decide that Gateway should itself be reconfigured to give Portuguese national Humberto Pedrosa full control over TAP.
Germán Efromovich wants the Gateway deal to be kicked out completely by Brussels and control of TAP assigned to his Synergy Group.
