The long awaited PwC audit into the financing of Grupo Espírito Santo companies by Portugal Telecom suggests that Banco Espírito Santo, specifically Ricardo Salgado, concealed vital financial information from the Portugal Telecom board as to the true financial situation at Rioforte.

PwC reports that on 27 November 2014, after Rioforte already had failed, the Portugal Telecom board were given a financial analysis where it was reported that the "integration of Espírito Santo Financial Group and Rio Forte had had a negative impact on the value between €1.6 and €1.9 billion."

The Moviflor, chain of furniture stores and home furnishings, yesterday ended its 40-year history with declared debts of around €130 million.

The company founded by Catherine Remigio has assets of about €18 million but the closure of all outlets was announced on 1 October, 2014.

Tivoli Hotels & Resorts announced today that it is seeking protection from its creditors by applying for a Special Revitalisation Process (PER) for Tivoli Hotels and Marinotéis Hotels.

The request has been made necessary by a delay in the disposal of the hotel group which is part of the wider disposal of assets of Rioforte which is undergoing insolvency proceedings.

The Public Ministry today pushed for a 'guilty' verdict for the Dutch ophthalmologist Dr. Franciscus Versteeg who ran the I-QMed clinic in Lagoa’s business park.

Prosectors consider that Dr Versteeg "committed gross negligence" in the treatment of four people undergoing eye surgery in 2010 which left them with varying degrees of visual impairment.

The Bank of England has kept the interest rates at the historic low of 0.5%. January is the 70th consecutive month beginning in March 2009 for the record rates.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) also decided to keep the size of the Bank's economic stimulus programme, known as quantitative easing (QE), unchanged at £375bn.

With the British expat Nigel Jackson held on charges of murdering his partner and burying her under concrete in their garden, the secrecy surrounding the case is close to zero.

Variously described as a golf lover, former taxi driver and odd job man, Jackson’s story that Brenda Davidson committed suicide failed to impress police who soon discovered that Davidson’s neck had suffered severe and violent wounds, evident when she was unwrapped from the plastic sheeting in which she had been buried.

No sooner had families and friends around the world exchanged best wishes for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2015 than the news broke about Her Majesty’s second son.

A woman alleged that a billionaire American investment banker used her as an under-age ‘sex slave’ and forced her to have repeated sexual relations in London, New York and on a private Caribbean island with rich and famous friends, including Prince Andrew.

The Portuguese and the Brits were responsible for some good figures last December in a last month boost to the region’s economy.

Revenues from hotels and tourist developments in the Algarve increased 6.6% in December, the month in which the overall average occupancy rate was 29.0%, some 6.6% more than in 2013.