"The BCE has the power to grant and revoke to credit institutions and to assess the acquisition of authorisation for any holdings of credit institutions in the euro area. These powers are exercised jointly with the competent national authorities' (NCAs), see the BCE's Guide to Banking Supervision.
On Wednesday, it was announced that the entrepreneur Isabel dos Santos will leave the EuroBic shareholder structure, a measure to "safeguard confidence in the institution", the bank said in a statement.
Thus, "Isabel dos Santos took the decision to leave the shareholder structure of EuroBic," reads the same note, which justifies this measure as being in the context of "the steps that have been promoted by the board of directors of EuroBic, in order to safeguard confidence in the institution".
In this context, "the sale of its participation has already started, which, due to the existence of interested parties, has ensured its implementation in a very short period of time, subject, according to the law, to the prior authorization of the competent authorities".
The institution also advances that, "since such exit decision is final and will take place as soon as possible, the shareholder has already and definitively waived the exercise of its voting rights".
Through companies linked to her, Isabel dos Santos was until now a 42.5 per cent shareholder in EuroBic, holding the largest 'slice' among the owners of shares in the bank founded in 2008.
On Monday, EuroBic said that "payments ordered by the client Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola (Sonangol) to Matter Business Solutions, revealed in the 'Luanda Leaks', complied with the legal and regulatory procedures formally applicable in the context of the regular commercial relationship" between the bank and the oil company Sonangol, "namely those related to preventing money laundering".
According to an investigation by the International Investigative Journalism Consortium (ICIJ), Matter Business Solutions received around 100 million dollars for consultancy services from Sonangol in Dubai in less than 24 hours, via EuroBic, in Lisbon, already after businesswoman Isabel dos Santos was relieved of her position as CEO of the Angolan oil company.
The Bank of Portugal announced on Monday that it "will draw the appropriate consequences, particularly in prudential and misdemeanour matters," of information received from EuroBic, requested following the disclosure of the 'Luanda Leaks', involving Isabel dos Santos.
In the same document, the central bank states that it requested "information from EuroBic to assess the way in which the said institution analyzed and fulfilled the duties it is subject to in the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing (BCFT)".
The BdP also informed that "in 2015 it conducted a cross-cutting inspection of the robustness of EuroBic's BCFT prevention mechanisms, the degree of implementation of which has been monitoring", and that in 2019 "a new cross-cutting inspection of EuroBic was initiated".
The institution also ensured that it "follows the best international supervisory practices, including in the field of the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing (BCFT)".
As it had done in the press release sent at the beginning of the year, when Isabel dos Santos' assets were seized in Angola by the Luanda Provincial Court, the BdP "considers all new facts that may be relevant for the purpose of assessing/reassessing the suitability of any persons performing administration/fiscalisation functions or shareholders of institutions it supervises".
