Judge orders e-mails in EDP/CMEC case to be destroyed – but they’ve vanished without trace
A judge has ordered the original e-mails used in an investigation that could have sustained a possible Public Ministry accusation against a former CEOs of Portugal’s electricity and renewables energy giant Energias de Portugal (EDP) to be shredded. However the original e-mails are nowhere to be found.
The Supreme Court judge ruled that after investigation the e-mails can now not be used by the defence magistrates involved in the case, Carlos Casimiro and Hugo Neto.
Thousands of e-mails were seized in June 2017 at EDP’s headquarters regarding messages between the then CEO of EDP, António Mexia and the CEO of EDP Renovavéis, João Manso Neto in the EDP/CMEC case. (Costs for the Maintenance of Contractual Balance)
The defence lawyers acting for the former managers alerted the Public Ministry that the use of seized e-mails constituted a crime and asked that it be clarified whether the deadline to close the investigation had been extended again.
According to news agency Lusa in April this year, a request addressed to the deputy attorney general of the Republic and to the appointed prosecutor of the EDP/CMEC case, from the defence team warned of the possibility of “extremely serious consequences” if the holders of the inquiry used emails from the defendants, which were ordered to be destroyed by order of the criminal examining magistrate and by the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ).
Considering that there are “strong indications that new criminal offences are being prepared”, the defence alleges that “it is important to immediately inform” about the situation “not only to the Attorney General’s Office, and for a proper assessment within the context of disciplinary responsibilities also to be taken into account in the resulting proceedings, as well as into the criminal investigation”.
Lawyers João Medeiros, Rui Costa Pereira, and Inês Almeida Costa had asked the deputy attorney general of the Republic to inform them if a “new extension to the deadline for the termination of this inquiry” was requested by the case prosecutors based on the order issued by the criminal examining magistrate, dated April 17.
At issue are 3,277 emails seized from former EDP administrators António Mexia and João Manso Neto, the seizure of which was annulled in October 2023 by a precedent-setting ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ).
If the indictment in the EDP/CMEC case – under investigation for about 12 years and which concerns the Equilibrium Maintenance Costs Contracts (CMEC) – contains the emails, the evidence, in the defence’s view, runs the risk of being declared null and void in a possible investigation phase requested by defendants or assistants.
In December 2022 the EDP/CMEC Case resulted in the indictment of former minister of the Economy, Manuel Pinho, his wife Alexandra Pinho, and former banker Ricardo Salgado for facts unrelated to the company and the CMEC.
The inquiry was meanwhile separated, and António Mexia and João Manso Neto were suspected of the crimes of corruption and economic participation in a business, while João Conceição, the CEO of electricity network company REN who was also a former consultant to former minister Manuel Pinho, was suspected of passive corruption.
The Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) has decided that the evidence collected in the EDP/CMEC case is not valid, using the argument that the seizure of emails would have to have been done with the authorisation of an investigating judge and not merely on the initiative of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP), as happened.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office had been notified to locate and inform where the null evidence to be destroyed was. In an order sent by the investigating judge Dias Costa, on October 15 – and to which online news source ECO had access – the magistrate insisted on knowing where the originals were. This meant that emails had not yet been destroyed.
The destruction of the e-mails was ordered by a final and unappealable decision, since the Public Prosecutor’s Office did not appeal. The magistrate therefore demand to know where the originals were.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) had until Wednesday to conclude the investigation into the CMEC/EDP case. The prosecutors had already asked for a one-month postponement to finish the investigation, but the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), under Amadeu Guerra, only gave 23 days, a period that ends this Wednesday. In total, there were about 20 extensions of the deadline requested, in the last seven years alone.
The case is related to the CMEC (Costs for the Maintenance of Contractual Balance) and the possible favouring of EDP, in which Mexia and Manso Neto are suspected of corruption and economic participation in a business to maintain excessive rents, in which, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, they may have corrupted the former Minister of Economy Manuel Pinho and the former Secretary of State for Energy Artur Trindade. At stake are benefits of more than €1.2Bn allegedly granted to by Manuel Pinho to EDP between October, 2006 and June 2012.
Mexia was made a defendant on June 2, 2017, following searches at EDP. Like Manso Neto, former director of the electricity company, he is suspected of four crimes of active corruption and alleged bribes to former minister Manuel Pinho (PS Sócrates Government), former director general of Energy Miguel Barreto and João Conceição, Pinho’s former consultant at the Ministry of Economy and current director of REN.