Lisbon, Aug. 14, 2025 (Lusa) - The trial in Portugal relating to the defunct BES bank capital increase operation in 2014 will take place in Vila do Conde, following a decision by the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) which resolved a conflict of territorial jurisdiction between courts.
The decision to hold this trial in Vila do Conde was taken on Tuesday by Judge Nuno Gonçalves and reported on Wednesday by the Correio da Manhã newspaper. It goes against the position defended by the public prosecutor's office and three of the official suspects in this case involving the Espírito Santo universe - Amílcar Morais Pires, Isabel Almeida and Banco Espírito Santo (BES) in liquidation - who believed that the trial should take place in Lisbon.
The criminal courts of Lisbon and Porto were in conflict, with both refusing any territorial jurisdiction to try the case, since it was not possible to determine where the most serious crime on trial in the case had been committed, in this case the crime of aggravated fraud with a penalty of between two and eight years in prison.
The Lisbon Criminal Investigation Court considered that the crime had been committed through "multiple acts in multiple locations" and therefore adopted the view that, in compliance with the pre-trial hearing decision to refer the case for trial, the case should be referred to the criminal court of Porto, since it was to the public prosecutor's office in that territorial area that a complaint was lodged in December 2014, which led to the opening of the inquiry with the case number that would eventually be assigned to the case.
However, the criminal court in Porto ruled that a complaint filed in September 2014 by another complainant with the attorney general's office (PGR) took precedence because it was earlier, even though it did not lead to the opening of an inquiry by the public prosecutor's office, considering that the criminal court in Lisbon was the competent court.
However, the order of the Porto court did point out that if the law determined territorial jurisdiction according to the place where the inquiry was first opened, the competent court should be that of Vila do Conde, since the first inquiry into the facts under trial was opened in Matosinhos following a complaint in October 2014.
"(...) it is concluded that jurisdiction for the trial phase in this case lies with the Central Criminal Court of Vila do Conde, since it was in its jurisdiction that the report of the crime of aggravated fraud first led to the opening of criminal proceedings," reads the order of Judge Nuno Gonçalves, to which Lusa had access.
In October 2024, the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon decided to send former banker Ricardo Salgado, former directors Morais Pires and Rui Silveira, and former financial director Isabel Almeida to trial in the BES capital increase case.
The decision confirmed the Public Prosecutor's Office's indictment, handed down in July 2022, which charged all the defendants with market manipulation and aggravated fraud, both as co-perpetrators. BES was also charged with aggravated fraud.
The former director José Manuel Espírito Santo was also included among the defendants, but his death in February 2023 led to the criminal proceedings being dropped.
At issue in this case is the capital increase of BES, which took place between May and June 2014, just a few weeks before the bank's collapse.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the crimes resulted in gains of more than €1 billion (€1,044,571,587.80).
According to the indictment relating to the public offering of the bank's shares by the Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DCIAP), "the defendants acted in the knowledge that, by their conduct, they were acting against the financial interests of the subscribers of the bank's new shares", with the aim of "creating a scenario that was far removed from reality".
Some of these official suspects are currently on trial in other cases, such as Amílcar Morais Pires in the main case of the collapse of BES and the BES Angola (BESA) case, and Ricardo Salgado, who, in addition to these two cases, is also on trial in Operation Marquês (against former prime minister Jose Socrates).
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