The lawyer acting for the association of those affected by the collapse of BES, they claim to have been mis-sold worthless ‘commercial paper’ in Espírito Santo Group companies, today met with representatives of the European Commission and reported that his team returns to Portugal with "renewed hope."
Nuno Vieira said today in Brussels, "We leave here satisfied because topics that are prohibited to discuss in Portugal were spoken of here today, namely confiscation and breach of trust. We needed to travel thousands of kilometers to be able to speak openly about a topic that in Portugal we cannot talk about."
Nuno Silva Vieira met officials from the Legal Department of the General Directorate for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Market Capital of the European Commission.
The lawyer said that "this was a very fruitful meeting" because they could address "very important issues" that had harmed the association’s members. The European Commission is aware of the "colossal problem of breach of trust, breach of property rights and even human rights violations."
"We also tried to understand to what extent European standards might have been violated in the BES case, and realise that there is more work we have to do on this aspect. So we think that our strategy should be to go to the EU court of law," said Vieira, who is determined to fight to obtain the full amount to which he says his members are entitled.
Parallel to the work in Brussels, Vieira said he had confidence that a next step could be an agreement with the new António Costa Socialist government.
"Before the elections, António Costa promised a swift, fair and effective response for those affected, and this is happening. We have met with government representatives and we think we are close to a solution to those affected. Why? Because we were assured that they will find a solution," said the lawyer.
Vieira filed an injunction this summer against the Bank of Portugal and the Resolution Fund to ensure that the central bank explicitly informed all potential buyers of Novo Banco of the total financial amount owed to BES claimants, 2,500 depositors are owed around €530 million, and that this figure was included as an impairment in the Novo Banco accounts.
The sale was pulled in September 2015, mainly because the bidders had taken note of the PWC report noting ‘unquantifiable liabilities’ at Novo Banco.
These liabilities have yet to be sorted out and any future Novo Banco sale price will still be low due to unknown future pay outs to those customers treated so cynically by BES staff and management who knowingly sold highly speculative investments while assuring customers that they were covered by the Bank of Portugal deposit guarantee scheme.
