Altice co-CEO suspends group functions as criminal probe underway

Altice, a France-based telecommunications company that owns Meo, Portugal’s largest telecoms brand, announced on Monday that Alexandre Fonseca, a co-CEO of the company, had suspended his functions within the group’s business activities in several geographies, including the positions of chairman in several units, in the wake of a criminal probe in Portugal.

In a statement, “the Altice group makes public that its current co-Ceo, Alexandre Fonseca, has informed the group that he has suspended his functions in the context of the group’s executive and non-executive management activities in several geographies, including the positions of ‘chairman’ in several subsidiaries” – this following an investigation by public prosecutors of Portugal’s Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP).

With this decision, Fonseca “unequivocally intends to protect the interests of the Altice group, and all its brands in a process that is public where, apparently, acts to be investigated occurred during the period in which he exercised the executive functions of president of Altice Portugal,” states the group. “This posture of Alexandre Fonseca is contextualised in a responsible act on the way to the full clarification of the truth.

“This is a decision that the Altice group accepts and values, as it helps to safeguard the pursuit of its business activity and promotes the defence of the principles of transparency, and unequivocal collaboration in establishing the facts,” it concludes.

Fonseca stepped down as executive chairman of Altice Portugal in April last year, taking on international executive functions in the group, as well as remaining chairman of the Portugal unit.

According to the DCIAP, an operation triggered on Thursday, which led to three detentions, included searches of about 90 residences and non-residential addresses, including company premises and law firms in various parts of the country.

At stake, it said in a statement, is the alleged “vitiation of the decision-making process of the Altice group, in terms of contracting, with practices harmful to the companies of that group and to competition” that point to the giving and receiving of bribes by individuals. It also stressed that the Portuguese state is believed to have been defrauded of a sum “in excess of 100 million euros.”

The investigation also indicates the existence of evidence of “abusive use of the reduced taxation applied in terms of IRC [corporate income tax] in the Madeira Free Zone” through the fictitious tax domiciliation of people and companies. The public prosecutors involved in the operation believe that offshore companies were also used, indicating the crimes of money laundering and forgery.

In the searches, DCIAP said, a number of documents were seized and other items “such as luxury vehicles and exclusive models with an estimated value of around 20 million euros.”