Venezuela’s emigrants injured by BES asked the Prime Minister, António Costa, for an urgent meeting to create a fund to compensate them for the lost money, according to a statement released today.
In the information to the media, the group of injured investors said that it took advantage of the visit to Venezuela, last week, by the Secretary of State for Communities, Berta Nunes, to request an urgent meeting with the Prime Minister, with the “objective of starting the working group to set up the Credit Recovery Fund, which will include immigrants from Venezuela who lost their savings at BES ”.
Emigrants recall the crisis in Venezuela, with a “difficult humanitarian situation”, in addition to having lost their savings in BES / GES products, mostly applied at BES branches in Madeira, to ask for a quick solution.
“These emigrants have already seen their case of fraudulent sale being analyzed and confirmed by the Commission of Independent Experts of the Bar Association, now needing the creation of a working group by the Government to be able to proceed with the partial recovery of their economies”, reads in the statement.
The injured migrants from Venezuela want a solution similar to that found for the injured in the commercial paper.
Then, in 2017, this solution included phasing out compensation by tiers.
Thus, it was agreed that investors with investments of up to 500 thousand euros will recover 75% of the invested amount, up to a maximum of 250 thousand euros. Already above that amount, they recover 50% of the money invested.
In December, the expert committees appointed by the Bar Association released the conclusions of the analysis of the claims of injured parties indicating those that are eligible to be included in a possible credit recovery fund, among which the claims of the injured parties in Venezuela who invested in products Grupo Espírito Santo (GES) to Banco Espírito Santo (BES) branches.
In the conclusions, the experts considered that evidence of illicit practices in the sale of financial products was found and validated 3,594 requests for recovery of credits, of which 1,264 were requests from injured parties from BES’s external branches (Venezuela and South Africa), for which a joint fund should be set up to allow the recovery of investments.
The operation should be similar to the fund created for the injured for the commercial role. In other words, the injured customers transfer the credits they have on GES / BES to this fund and receive indemnities that compensate them for the money lost (even if not in full). In order to pay damages to the injured parties, the fund must receive a guarantee from the State.
The fund will litigate in court and, if it decides in favor of the injured parties, it will be the credit recovery fund to receive compensation.
The injured association of Venezuela told Lusa in December that 180 investors (sometimes each representing more than one person, since there are collective investments) are involved, injured by 95 million euros.
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