Assuring that the media and Sonae have learned of the seizure of their holdings in ZOPT - held by Angola's Kento and UIH and Sonae and the controlling shareholder of NOS - Isabel dos Santos' group says that "it cannot comply with the decision".
Sonaecom announced on Saturday that the court has decided to make a preventive seizure of 26.075 per cent of the share capital of NOS, following the publication of news about allegedly fraudulent schemes involving the company.
In the reaction published this Sunday, Kento and UIH assume "willingness to cooperate with the Portuguese judicial authorities", but stress that the decision was based on a request from the Angolan justice "clearly abusive".
The request "will aim to protect an alleged right of credit of the Angolan State, not yet proven, and claimed from the shareholder of the companies UIH and Kento", but "in Angola there is already arrested property for the same purpose since December 2019", claims the group.
"Besides being seizing what is not due, the Angolan authorities still request that the Portuguese Justice apply judicial measures against UIH and Kento, companies that have nothing to do with the alleged claims," the businesswoman disputes, recalling that the decision will prevent "the payment of salaries to workers in Portugal, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe" and "licenses and taxes to all tax authorities.
In addition, complains the entrepreneur's group, the judicial decision prevents "the shareholder's right to vote, without noting that [this] goes against the legal norm expressed in an attachment as a pledge".
Isabel dos Santos is surprised that in Angola the judicial authorities have not applied any restrictions on the normal operation of companies.
Considering that the request of the Angolan Justice is "incongruous" and misuses the Portuguese justice "to achieve non-legal and disproportionate ends", the businesswoman asks for consideration.
In the statement, Isabel dos Santos advises the Portuguese authorities to "consider these facts under penalty of condemning companies and workers, and families, to bankruptcy and trial, in an unacceptable way and based on a disproportionate and dual position of the Angolan Justice".
