At the end of last month, a communiqué from Sonangol stated that only Isabel dos Santos' company would have to pay the compensation. However, according to a French court ruling, to which the Portuguese weekly Expresso had access, the court ruled that the three companies - Vidatel, Mercury and Geni - violated the shareholders' para-social agreement and disrespected the duties related to the payment of dividends since 2013, forcing them to pay the compensation to PT Ventures.
"The defendants are jointly and severally liable for the payment of an indemnity to the plaintiff (PT Ventures) in the amount of 339.4 million dollars, arising from the loss of value of its shares in Unitel due to the breach of the shareholders' agreement", determines the ruling.
In addition to the indemnity of 339.4 million dollars, the companies will also have to pay "an additional 314.8 million dollars of compensation for damages caused to the plaintiff as a result of dividends not paid since 2013. Dividends that the defendants cannot claim from Unitel", determined the Paris Court.
Once the accounts are done, the three companies will have to pay a total of $653.4 million to Unitel.
The weekly writes that PT Ventures has the possibility of deciding which of the defendants should execute the sentence, since they are in solidarity with each other. Expresso tried to contact Sonangol to see if the oil company only asked Vidatel to pay the compensation and why it only mentioned it in the statement, but got no answer.
The case concerns the merger of PT Ventures with the Brazilian company Oi, in 2014. PT, which founded Unitel, owned 25 per cent of the operator. Due to the merger, which never materialized, the 25 per cent of Unitel was transferred to Oi. In 2019, the Brazilian company sold its stake in the operator to Sonangol.
The three companies (Vidatel, Mercury and Geni) filed an action at the Paris Court of Appeal for considering that the sale violated the shareholders' agreement, but ended up losing.
