Portugal’s union of journalists has lodged a complaint at the Regulatory Authority for the Media about the closure and resurrection of newspapers Sol and i, which lost €4.4 million and €3.8 million last year, respectively.
Around 100 jobs are to go at the two titles, controlled by Angolan businessman and former BES Angola chief Dr Álvaro Sobrinho, who aims to close the businesses and re-employ selected staff to run two new publications called, coincidentally, Sol and i.
The Journalists' Union announced that it is filing a complaint with the Regulatory Authority for the Media (ERC) against the owners of the two newspapers, a decision motivated by the disclosure on the newspapers’ websites that two-thirds of the workers of the holding company Newshold are to be sacked.
"On Wednesday, December 2, the country witnessed one of those memorable moments in the recent history of Portuguese journalism for all the wrong reasons,” ran the union’s statement, referring to a recording of one of Newshold’s directors, Mário Ramires, announcing the closures and sackings. The recording was made publicly available on the websites of the two newspapers affected.
The dismissal of about 100 workers followed a decision by the shareholders of Newshold, the Madaleno family led by Álvaro Sobrinho, to abandon their participation in these media projects.
Mário Ramires will create a new company to run the titles with remaining staff receiving large pay and benefit cuts.
The financing of the new company will be by a loan from the former shareholders of Newshold and Ramires said that valid redundancy claims will be paid, although he has not given a deadline.
Portugal’s prosecutors are keen to discover the origin of Sobrinho’s apparent wealth which may have been amassed during the period that he was non-executive chairman of BES Angola, the bank where a black hole of over €4 billion was discovered leading to the collapse of BES and much of the Espírito Santo Group.
Sobrinho and the owners of Newshold certainly are wealthy enough not to have to resort to this sort of slippery tax efficient restructuring just when an investment goes wrong. Whether what is proposed is legal in Portugal remains to be seen, the evidence that the moves are immoral is stacking up fast.
