The Court of Auditors considers that Portugal’s execution of aircraft leasing contracts before the prior visa imposed by law was illegal, which could impose financial liabilities on several directors of the company owned by TAP, including former president Christine Ourmières-Widener.
The decision made known this Wednesday is due to the fact that Portugália sent for prior approval two extensions to the aircraft leasing contracts that had already been signed and were in execution, for an amount of one million euros and 2.1 million euros, respectively.
These incorporations were subject to a visa prerequisite when Portugália became a public company. The State retained the entire capital of TAP, after the financial injection carried out in 2021. However, the management of TAP and Portugália continued, in some aspects, to follow the rules applicable to private companies, a situation that in fact led to the negotiation and payment of compensation to former manager Alexandra Reis, despite her status as public manager.
Only after this case broke did it become clear to TAP’s then management that it had to follow the rules applicable to public companies. Despite some exceptions defined in the diploma, the TAP group was not exempt from the obligation to obtain a prior visa for expenses exceeding a certain amount.
At the beginning of 2023, still during the management of Christine Ourmiéres-Widener, contracts began to be sent to the Court of Auditors. And in some cases, as Observer reported, the contracts sent by TAP and PGA for visas were already in place, constituting a financial violation punishable by a fine. At that time, more than 30 contracts were returned to TAP without a visa, since they were already materially and financially executed.
TAP asked the Court of Auditors for a visa for contracts already executed, which could represent a financial violation and entail a fine
The Court of Accounts (TdC) does not identify the executives sanctioned for illegality, but expressly states “that the “Those responsible for committing this infraction are the former president and the current president of the board of directors.”identified as B and C, “and to date vowels of the same organ F, D, E, G, H and I, respectively. The former president is Christine Ourmières-Widener, who was fired as president of TAP because of the Alexandra Reis case, but who did not leave office until mid-April.
But in relation to other objectives, the judges’ decision is relieve (absolve) the sanctioning financial responsibility attributed to C — who will be the current president of the board of directors from TAP and Portugália, Luís Rodrigues, to H and I. This takes into account the date of entry into office of the accused, April 27 and May 24, 2023.
With Luís Rodrigues, administrators Mário Chaves and Maria João Cardoso and, more recently, Mário Cruz joined TAP and Portugália. Sofia Lufinha and Gonçalo Pires, who is TAP’s financial administrator, continued on the PGA board of directors from the previous administration. The Observer has already questioned TAP and the Court of Accounts to confirm who the recipients of this financial accountability process are, without obtaining a response.
According to the organic law of the Court of Accounts, the first and second sections can exclude liability for pecuniary infringement when it is clear that the fault can only be attributed to the author: as negligence; when there is no prior recommendation from the ToC or internal control body to correct the irregularity; or because it was the first time that the author was criticized for his practice.
The now known decision refers to a contract between Portugália and Bulgaria Air for the leasing of aircraft that was originally signed in April 2022 and that a year later the Portuguese company wanted to renew. These additions could not take effect before the decision of the Court of Auditors. However, indicates the TdC, Portugália gave it “material execution as of April 1, 2023 and effective financial execution (with the payment of two invoices).” An invoice was paid on March 29 and was only authorized by the Court on May 12. There were also other invoices that were made between late April and March before the visa was issued on July 13, and some payments were even made before the pre-visa application was submitted to the Court.
In the contradictions presented, Portugália and the accused officials argued, on the one hand, that it was “their conviction” that the contracts were not subject to prior inspection by the TdC. “On the other hand, they considered that they were facing an imperative urgency considering the financial and reputational consequences of not implementing these additions.”
In a subsequent phase of contradiction, those responsible also demanded the “verification of a cause for exclusion of illegality (conflict of duties), the absence of guilt due to violation of mandate duties or the exclusion of guilt as acting in a state of excusable necessity.” . , ending with requests to close the process or to remove the pecuniary sanctioning responsibility or to forgive the fine.”
Source: Observadora
