Crédit Agricole and its insurer Predica moved forward with two lawsuits at the Lisbon District Court against Ricardo Salgado, former chairman of Banco Espírito Santo, Amílcar Morais Pires, former CFO of the bank, and Rioforte, a company belonging to the former Espírito Santo Group. The actions were filed on July 20 and assigned on September 1 by the Lisbon Central Civil Court, classified as "Common Process" actions, meaning they seek compensation for civil liability.
The first lawsuit, filed by Crédit Agricole, a former BES shareholder with 14.6% in 2014, seeks compensation of 855.3 million euros. The second lawsuit, brought by Predica against the same three defendants, requests approximately 152.8 million euros. In total, the actions exceed one billion euros.
Crédit Agricole, which at one point held directly and indirectly 20.1% of BES, had already admitted it would pursue legal measures after the bank's resolution in August 2014. In November of that year, the French group announced that the impact of losses associated with the BES resolution was accounted for at 708 million euros in the second quarter of 2014.
In August 2014, the CEO of Crédit Agricole, Jean-Paul Chifflet, lamented that they had been "deceived by the family" with whom they tried to create a partnership to build the largest private bank in Portugal. The French group recorded a 13.2% drop in net profit in the first nine months of 2014, attributed to the BES crisis.
