Portuguese regulator fines Euronews owner for failing to prevent money laundering

Portugal’s Securities Market Commission (CMV) has fined Alpac Capital, the owner of Euronews and Nascer do Sol newspapers, and two managers more than €100,000 for failing to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing.

In a decision revealed on Wednesday, the CMVM decided to fine the group with a “one-off fine for €100,000 suspended in its execution at €50,000 of the fine applied”.

At issue are several breaches identified by the CMVM, including failures to comply with the obligation to obtain customer identification data, to obtain counterparty identification data in various respects, to assess the quality of beneficiaries, to adopt additional due diligence procedures, to take enhanced measures about the customer and the counterparty, and to notify the termination of the duties of the person responsible for compliance and to replace that person.

At the same time, the CMVM fined Pedro Vargas David, the CEO of Aplac Capital, €25,000.

“The official suspect Pedro Vargas David, in his capacity as chairman of the board of directors of the defendant Alpac Capital, causally contributed to the failure to verify, in the context of the business relationship established by Alpac Capital with the subscriber of units in a fund managed by it, the document authorising the representation of that client by a third party,” the document reads.

The regulator also accused the manager of, among other things, contributing “casually to the failure, within the scope of the business relationship established by Alpac Capital with two entities subscribing to units in a fund it manages, to examine with special care and attention two operations that could be related to funds or other assets originating from terrorist financing or other criminal activities”, among other things.

Furthermore, Luís Costa Santos was penalised with a fine of €12,500.

“The official suspect, Luís Costa Santos, held 33.33% of the share capital and was the beneficial owner of an entity which, by subscribing to units in a fund managed by Alpac Capital, established a business relationship with the latter,” reads the CMVM’s report.

The regulator said that Luís Costa Santos, “in his capacity as a member of the Board of Directors of the official suspect Alpac Capital, made a causal contribution to the fact that, within the scope of the business relationship established by Alpac Capital with an entity subscribing to participation units in a fund it manages, an operation that could be related to funds or other assets originating from terrorist financing or other criminal activities was not examined with special care and attention.”

On 12 April, the Media Regulatory Authority (ERC) told Lusa that it was “verifying compliance with the legal obligations of transparency” by Newsplex, which owns the Nascer do Sol and i Inevitável newspapers and which in turn is owned by Pedro Vargas David’s Alpac.

The regulator’s statement followed a report in the Expresso newspaper that Pedro Vargas David—son of former PSD MEP Mário David, a political adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán —“received €45 million from the Hungarian state” to buy the European television channel Euronews.

(Alexandra Noronha, edited by Pedro Sousa Carvalho | Lusa.pt)

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