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Judgment Espirito Santo Silva Salgado v. Portugal - No violation of right to fair trial for former chair of Banco Espirito Santo bank | Communiqué de presse - Arrêts de chambre | Publié le 03/12/2024 | Adresse URL du document: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre-press?i=003-8105087-11340455 | This document is available only in PDF format.
“PRESS RELEASE
issued by the Registrar of the Court
ECHR 284 (2024)
03.12.2024
No violation of right to fair trial for former chair of Banco Espírito Santo bank
In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of Espírito Santo Silva Salgado v. Portugal (application no. 30970/19) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: no violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 2 (right to a fair trial / presumption of innocence) of the European Convention on Human Rights
The case concerned an application lodged by the former chair of the board of directors of the Banco Espírito Santo (“BES”), one of the most important private banks in Portugal, the collapse of which had been the subject of resolution action and had attracted considerable media attention. In the present case, the applicant complained about the administrative proceedings that had been brought against him by the Bank of Portugal, alleging that various public statements made by the governor of that bank at the relevant time had impaired his right to an independent and impartial tribunal and his right to be presumed innocent.
As to the Bank of Portugal’s alleged lack of impartiality, the Court took the view that the relevant question was whether the decision taken by that administrative authority had been reviewed by a judicial body with full jurisdiction. In that regard, it found that the applicant had been afforded the benefit of judicial scrutiny of sufficient scope for the purposes of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention. It further found that the statements made by the governor of the Bank of Portugal had not impaired the applicant’s right to be presumed innocent under Article 6 § 2 of the Convention.
Principal facts
The applicant, Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva Salgado, is a Portuguese national who was born in 1944.
Until July 2014 he was the chair of the board of directors of the private bank Banco Espírito Santo (“BES”) and of the Espírito Santo Financial Group S.A. (“ESFG”).
In August 2014 the BES recorded a loss of 3 577 million euros on account of its exposure to debt in a Luxembourg-based company (Espírito Santo Group), to which it belonged.
On 3 August 2014 the Bank of Portugal decided to take resolution action in respect of the BES, a fact which it announced during a press conference held by five members of its board of directors, which was broadcast live on television and on a number of the country’s radio stations.
During the press conference, certain statements were made by the then governor of the Bank of Portugal, C.C. He subsequently gave three interviews in 2016, two with the weekly Expresso newspaper and one with the Público daily.
Meanwhile, between 2014 and 2015, the board of directors of the Bank of Portugal had launched two investigations into the BES, the ESFG, the applicant and three other senior executives of the BES for fraudulent acts of financial mismanagement, unjustified failure to comply with instructions from the Bank of Portugal and breach of conflict-of-interest rules in connection with events that had occurred between 2009 and 2014. Those investigations were subsequently joined.
HUDOC - European Court of Human Rights
echr.coe.int
JUDGMENT ESPÍRITO SANTO SILVA SALGADO V. PORTUGAL - NO VIOLATION OF RIGHT TO FAIR TRIAL FOR FORMER CHAIR OF BANCO ESPÍRITO SANTO BANK.PDF | p. 1-4.
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