The association of victims of Banco Privado Português (BPP) said this Friday that they could end up with “nothing or next to nothing” due to “unreasonable” interest payments to the state by the bank’s liquidation commission (CL).
In a statement to the Lusa agency, Privado Clientes states that “CL BPP accounted for 160 million euros of interest in favor of the state from creditors’ money”, because “despite having a sufficient amount from the beginning of its activity, in 2010 it waited more than 10 years in order to fully pay the state the bank guarantee provided by it.
According to him, “to this cost is also added the officially recorded cost of operating the CL, in total from 40 to 50 million.”
“The question we are all asking is if CL had the financial ability to pay the government, why didn’t she do it sooner?” Jaime Antunes, president of Privado Clientes, said in a statement.
As he points out, “the payment of interest, if any, will result in the victim ultimately receiving nothing or virtually nothing from the bankrupt property, which had hundreds of millions of euros in the bank.”
“Does anyone understand that CL, having hundreds of millions of euros in the bank and earning zero interest, is charging 160 million euros in interest…?” he asks.
Given that the implementation of the CL BPP “always resulted in damage to the affected, private Portuguese citizens”, the association recalls that “in 2008, the board of directors appointed by Banco de Portugal resorted to a state bank guarantee to pay institutional creditors and foreigners discriminating against Portuguese private clients.”
Portuguese customers, which “now are not counted again, with interest of 160 million that could have been avoided”.
For Privado Clientes, the state bank guarantee “was invested in a financial investment that could bring the state 4% per annum, again and unjustifiably sanctioning creditors.”
In a statement sent to Lusa, the association recalls that the “legitimacy of the interest itself” will still be assessed in a pending process and that it will analyze the “lawfulness of the guarantee given by BPP to the State”, which, according to Privado Clientes, it was “granted without presenting a plan restoration, although this should have been done by the administration sworn in by Banco de Portugal in 2008.”
This administration lasted until 2010, when the Bank of Portugal withdrew the bank’s license, subsequently appointing a liquidation commission.
The collapse of BPP, a bank specializing in wealth management, began with the financial crisis of 2008 and ended in 2010. Despite the small size of the bank, BPP’s failure hurt thousands of customers and the state, and had important repercussions due to potential contagion effects on the rest of the system as the financial crisis continued.
BPP founder and former president Joao Rendeiro and other former directors of BPP were accused of economic and financial crimes that took place between 2003 and 2008 after awarding prizes and misappropriating bank money.
Joao Rendeiro died on May 12 in a prison in South Africa, where he had been held since December 11, 2021, after three months of evading Portuguese justice in order to avoid serving his sentence in Portugal.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
