Lisbon, Nov. 4, 2024 (Lusa) - Greenvolt - Energias Renováveis, a Portugal-based renewable energy company, announced on Monday that the company's board of directors has decided that João Manso Neto should remain as CEO, after he was formally charged with bribery by the country's Public Prosecution Service.

In a statement sent to Portugal's Securities Markets Commission (CMVM), Greenvolt said that the board had been informed of the charges against Manso Neto related to his time as a director of EDP, several years before taking up any position at Greenvolt, and that it would continue to monitor the progress of the case.

António Mexia, a former CEO of EDP, and Manso Neto, who was its CFO, were last week charged with corruption in a case in which a former economy minister, Manuel Pinho and other defendants, also now face formal charges.

A source linked to the case told Lusa that the former minister is accused of receiving bribes, as have João Conceição, a director of grid operator REN and former adviser to Pinho, his adviser Rui Cartaxo and Portugal's former director-general of energy, Miguel Barreto. 

The defendants and EDP were ordered to forfeit a combined sum of close to €1 billion.

The charges mark the end of a criminal investigation opened in 2012 into Contractual Equilibrium Maintenance Costs (CMEC) paid to EDP under an agreement with the Portuguese state.

In December 2022, this investigation led to charges being laid against Pinho, his wife Alexandra Pinho, and former banker Ricardo Salgado, one-time CEO of Banco Espírito Santo, for unrelated offences.

Another part of the investigation was then split off, essentially aimed at facts involving Mexia and Manso Neto, who had to leave their positions at the electricity company as a result.

SO/ARO // ARO.

Lusa