Lisbon District Prosecutor's Office has demanded that Canadian academic Peter Boone be tried for writing articles that predicted and helped trigger Portugal’s debt crisis and which bagged him over UDS800,000 due to subsequent shifts in bond prices.
Boone’s lawyers say their client denies any wrongdoing and ask for the Portuguese prosecutors to drop the case, adding that just because their client had an opinion that turned out to be correct, he is not guilty of a crime.
Portuguese bonds started to peak from April 2010 and later forced the Sócrates government to go for an international bailout as the cost of government finance had become unrealistic, hitting highs of over 17% in January 2012.
The Lisbon District Prosecutor's Office claims that Boone is guilty of market manipulation and wants a judge to review the allegations, a necessary step before any trial.
The prosecution claims to have evidence that Boone made a profit by talking up the bond interest rates with his comparison of Portugal to Greece which was in a worse economic state.
‘The Next Global Problem: Portugal,’ was published in April 2010 on a blog on The New York Times' website along with other damaging pieces in a similar vein without Boone admitting he was on the board of a company that provided investment services to a large hedge fund that dealt in Portuguese government bonds. This, Boone’s lawyers deny.
The academic turned businessman already has made himself available to Portuguese prosecutors to counter their claims and, along with co-author Simon Johnson, say the assertions are ridiculous.
See also:
'Harvard professor cleared of rigging Portuguese debt'
http://algarvedailynews.com/news/10082-harvard-professor-cleared-of-rigging-portuguese-debt
