European Commission will investigate the sale products from BES to emigrant clients

The European Commission will move forward with a preliminary investigation on the products’ sale from BES to emigrant clients that ended up suffering losses with the bank’s resolution, according to documents accesses by the Portuguese news agency Lusa.

The investigation was requested by the European Parliament, which accepted the petition from the Association representing BES former emigrant clients (Associação Movimento Emigrantes Lesados — AMELP), which questioned the way the bank sold financial products to Portuguese emigrants, considering there was a violation of financial mediation rules. AMELP also questioned the way the owners of those products were treated during the resolution of the bank in August of 2014, both by the Bank of Portugal and by Novo Banco, the entity that emerged from BES.

In a document recently sent to AMELP, which Lusa saw, the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament states that the petition has been accepted and that “it asked the European Commission to start a preliminary investigation on the different aspects of the problem based on the information sent”.