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José Maria Ricciardi, former president of Banco Espírito Investimento (BESI), definitively no longer had assets preventively seized within the scope of a precautionary measure that was launched by the Credit Recovery Fund for the commercial paper of Espírito Santo Internacional and Rio Forte.
The same happened with Pedro Mosqueira do Amaral (the heir of a family that is not Espírito Santo by blood, but that managed to be the fifth clan of Espírito Santo), António Souto (former administrator of BES), Rui Silveira (former administrator from BES with the legal department), Jorge Carvalho Martins and João Freixa (the latter two former administrators of BES and Novo Banco).
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The decision was made by the 8th Section of the Lisbon Court of Appeal, which did not grant the appeal from the Credit Recovery Fund and considered that the legal requirements for decreeing the preventive seizure of assets had not been met and ordered the “lifting of the previously ordered arrest”. The decision will have already become final.
As with other visas, Ricciardi thus regains the management of all his personal assets, which includes a pension exceeding the 11 thousand euros to which he was entitled.
In addition to the pension, the issue involved taking out mortgages on several properties belonging to his personal assets, such as his house in Cascais. The Lisbon Court of Appeal found that Ricciardi did not carry out any “encumbrance of assets, with a view to reducing the asset guarantee of possible creditors”as claimed by the Credit Recovery Fund.
The court valued the fact that the former president of BES Investimento had made significant repayments of the financing he contracted (and which gave rise to the contested mortgages).
“José Maria Ricciardi managed to demonstrate that the mortgages” made in the name of BCP “have no connection with the intention of encumbering/reducing its assets”, reads the ruling to which the Observer had access.
This decision by the Lisbon Relation confirms a previous decision of the Central Civil Court of Lisbondated July 2023, and which had already benefited the former managers of BES and the Espírito Santo Group mentioned above.
In the first instance, the judge in charge of the case valued the fact that there was no reference to any responsibility in most of the open judicial proceedings, namely criminal, administrative and civil proceedings.
Furthermore, Ricciardi’s activity, limited to investment banking, would also have nothing to do with the scrutiny of Ricardo Salgado’s power and management. And no omission or violation was indicated on the part of the former leader of BES Investimento that would jeopardize the protection of creditors.
In July 2022, the Lisbon Relation (through a decision taken by a different group from the one that now decided to confirm the lifting of the seizure) had decided to freeze a very diverse set of assets and funds. This led to several contestation processes that are now ending.
