"I came to the constitution of the company with a power of attorney and, because they saw that power of attorney, they barely assumed that I had anything to do with the life of the company. I didn't and I don't have it," Jorge Brito Pereira said in a written explanation in response to Lusa.
Previously, the lawyer had already told to the portuguese newspapers Observador and Expresso that he had no relationship with the company, which, according to an investigation by the International Research Journalism Consortium (ICIJ), received about 100 million dollars for consulting services from Sonangol, in less than 24 hours, already after businesswoman Isabel dos Santos was exonerated from her position as the oil company's executive president.
"During yesterday [Sunday], a report was issued in which it refers, in more than one passage, to the Matter Business Solutions company, that it would be 'controlled' or 'managed' by me. I must not comment publicly on matters that are subject to professional secrecy but, on this specific point, I must point out that such information is absolutely false", can be read in the clarification sent to the media.
Jorge Brito Pereira also stated that he has not "ever" taken any action in this company, nor has he ever held "any position in the corporate bodies" or moved "any bank account".
"In short, I have never had any intervention other than to formally constitute the company, with the powers conferred to me by its sole shareholder, in the exercise of my profession as a lawyer", said the Chairman of the Board of Directors ('chairman') of NOS and Chairman of the General Meetings of EuroBic and Efacec Power Solutions, companies in which Isabel dos Santos holds shares.
The lawyer for the company says that the aforementioned power of attorney "corresponds to a general and standardised document which, in fact" conferred on her "a broad and comprehensive set of powers, which, without prejudice, were never in any way - apart from the formal incorporation of the company -" exercised.
Faced with the disclosure on Sunday by a group of investigative journalists of over 715,000 files, under the name of 'Luanda Leaks', detailing the financial schemes of Isabel dos Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo, who will be at the origin of the family fortune, the Lusa agency tried to get reactions from other companies in Portugal where the entrepreneur has interests.
When contacted by Lusa, the Amorim group and NOS did not wish to comment on the situation, as did BPI (which holds a 48.1 per cent stake in Banco de Fomento Angola and has already been forced to sell 2 per cent by the European Central Bank to Unitel, which has become the majority shareholder).
The Lusa agency also questioned the Bank of Portugal, the Securities Market Commission (CMVM) and the Ministry of the Economy, and so far it has not obtained answers.
Mira Amaral, the first leader of the Portuguese BIC (now EuroBIC), also did not want to comment on the case: "I left the bank four years ago, I never talked about the bank and about Angola," he told Lusa.
