The Spanish government is contemplating legal action against HSBC bank after it was learned that its private bank in Switzerland helped clients avoid tax authorities.
The files show that 2,694 Spaniards had accounts in HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary, worth a total of more than €2 billion.
Jails in England and Wales were found by an official study not to be overcrowded, but to have three times as many prisoners sentenced to life than elsewhere in Europe.
In England and Wales, prison density "per 100 places" was 95.5, meaning it was just scraping overcrowding levels.
The Secretary of State for Transport, Sérgio Monteiro, today announced a submission deadline of May 15 for those interested in buying Portugal’s national airline, TAP.
Monteiro said the privatisation of TAP is being done on behalf of "the future of TAP and its employees."
Morocco, in a light touch initiative, took to dismantling migrant camps near the Spanish enclave of Melilla by burning hundreds of the migrants’ makeshift shelters.
Migrants claim that the Moroccan security forces held people back by force as they cleared the camps. Witnesses said the forces hit people on arms, legs and heads, with some needing hospital attention.
Portugal's Attorney General's Office announced today that the Public Ministry is getting its act together relating to the list of Portuguese clients of HSBC in Switzerland who allegedly have been hiding their wealth from the tax authorities.
A total so far of 611 HSBC account holders with links to Portugal have been concealing their money in Switzerland. Accounts at HSBC with a total of €856 million have been traced to Portugal and there will be more to come.
The managements of REN and Galp are launching legal bids to challenge the government’s raid on their company profits.
The tax grab, referred to as a rather more cuddly ‘extraordinary contribution,’ was levied on the energy sector as a one-off in 2014, and then again in 2015.
The Government is to introduce a points system for drivers to replace the current system of fines and licence suspension for traffic law infringement.
The Secretary of State for Home Affairs, João Almeida, announced that the bill for the establishment of a points system for drivers will be presented to parliament before the end of March.
The boss of Novo Banco, Eduardo Stock da Cunha, said to parliament today that he is to continue working on a solution for those BES investors who bought Espírito Santo Group paper, and that he is ‘concerned.’
Until now, the Novo Banco chief appears to have had little interest in paying off this group of investors as they are all creditors to the old BES and nothing to do with Novo Banco, set up precisely to avoid having to pay BES debts.
