The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) confirms that the operation known as the Airbus funds is still under investigation, following the complaint filed in 2022 by the previous Government regarding the privatization of TAP.
In response to the Observer, an official source from the PGR said that it had received the report from the General Inspection of Finance sent by the Government, in which the financing of the capitalization carried out by the shareholder David Neeleman in 2015 again raised doubts about its legality. The IGF suggested that at this point the audit that it carried out on various operations related to the carrier, which has been under investigation since February 2023, be sent to the PGR.
“The same (IGF report) was sent to the DCIAP where, after its analysis, it was determined to join the document to an investigation that is currently being investigated in that department and that, being public, originated from a participation presented by, at the time, the Ministers of Infrastructure and Housing and the Minister of Finance.”
In addition to the Airbus funds and the suspicion that the private capital inflow into TAP was carried out using as collateral the payments that the airline itself committed to make to Airbus for the purchase of aircraft, the IGF highlights another case that should be investigated for possible criminal evidence: the service provision agreement signed between TAP and the private shareholder holding company under which the company paid 4.3 million euros in remuneration and bonuses to executives who were also shareholders, without deducting tax or social security.
A “complex operation” that evaded the law and a “simulated” business The IGF’s suspicions about TAP
Source: Observadora
