Lisbon, March 28, 2025 (Lusa) - The court has confirmed that two more of Ricardo Salgado's offences in the BES case are time-barred, leaving the former chairman of Banco Espírito Santo to answer for 54 crimes, 11 fewer than at the start of the trial.

According to the orders signed this month, and to which Lusa has had access, two crimes of infidelity are time-barred - one on 28 February and the other on 8 March.

Two more offences of infidelity expired on Friday, but the Lisbon District Court has yet to issue the order that will confirm these and bring the former banker's list of crimes to 52.

The two offences whose statute of limitations has been confirmed by the court, and for which the penalty could be up to three years in prison or a fine, are related to Espírito Santo International (ESI): one concerns the sale of ESI's debt to BES clients and the other concerns BES's payment of the debt placed on its clients, even though it knew of the potential losses, back in 2014.

The Public Prosecutor's Office charged Ricardo Salgado with 65 offences in July 2020. Still, the former banker came to trial, which began in October 2024, with 62 offences, since two crimes of forgery and one of infidelity had already expired.

Since the trial began in the BES/GES case, in addition to the two most recent statutes of limitations, six offences of document forgery have already been dropped. The penalty for these offences can also be up to three years or a fine.

Ricardo Salgado is still on trial for the offences of criminal association, qualified fraud, active corruption, market manipulation, money laundering, document forgery and infidelity.

The former chairman of BES is one of the 18 defendants in this case. The Public Prosecutor's Office estimates that the acts allegedly carried out between 2009 and 2014 by the defendants, former directors of BES and other GES entities, caused losses of €11.8 billion to the bank and the group.

RCV/ADB // ADB.

Lusa