Small investors caught up in the BES good bank/bad bank carve-up are now drawing up a petition demanding compensation from the government for money lost as share prices collapsed.
The initiative, prompted by former MP Nandin de Carvalho, hopes to raise the requisite 4,000 signatures for the issue to be discussed in Parliament.
Reporting on the story today, Jornal i writes that so far 600 people have put their names to the call – which comes as the clamour over alleged foul play within government circles grows ever louder.
In his opinion column this morning, journalist and author Artur Portela suggests it is time for the Governor of the Bank of Portugal, the Finance Minister Maria Luís Albuquerque and other key figures to fall on their swords and resign, classifying the BES bailout announced last week as being no more than “a dark story from the Brothers Grimm”.
“The Governor of the Bank of Portugal guaranteed, repeatedly… that BES was solid. It wasn’t,” he writes. “It isn’t”.
Meanwhile, “the prime minister and various ministers, particularly the Minister of Finance, declared BES losses would never impact on taxpayers”.
“Nothing is safe,” he warns, describing the situation in Portugal today as between drama and tragedy.
And within hours of these cameos coming into the limelight, the Auditors Court (TdC) revealed that the crippling cost of nationalising the infamous BPN bank could still hold lots of unpleasant surprises.
In a report today, the TdC reveals that accumulated costs of nationalisation topped €2.2 billion at the end of last year, but that “new and significant” debts found in Parparticipadas – one of the companies created to manage BPN’s “toxic activities” – “could translate into the need for State capitalisation”.
According to Jornal i, indirect losses to Parparticipadas could come if the company is unable to pay a €90 million loan it took out at the end of 2012 from Caixa Geral de Depósitos.
Home Portugal News BES’ “small shareholders” demand compensation as new ‘black hole’ looms over BPN...
