“This is going to have to be proven here, but I can say that what happened after I left was the bank collapsed because of the provisions the Bank of Portugal and the auditors ordered and which led the bank to solvency ratios that were unsupportable under international rules to maintain a relationship with the European Central Bank (ECB)”, he told reporters.

“This is what caused the collapse of Banco Espírito Santo [BES]”, he said.

Ricardo Salgado was speaking after a hearing regarding a request to challenge the €4 million fine by the Bank of Portugal for selling Espírito Santo Internacional (ESI) debt to the bank’s clients.

Ricardo Salgado said the resolution of BES “was a disaster”, an opinion he believes ids now shared by “many people”, since “there were provisions that were transferred to Novo Banco and that were then not used to solve the commitments towards the victims”.

“When I left the bank, the bank had more than enough resources to reimburse all the victims and that was what had been foreseen”, he stressed.