David Nieleman, a former TAP shareholder, said he negotiated the carrier’s exit when he realized “that the government wants to take control of the company at any cost,” arguing that the €55 million received did not represent any compensation.
The businessman, who responded to 80 questions sent by a parliamentary commission of inquiry to the TAR, said in a document that Lusa had access to that he had not received “any compensation” for the €55 million paid to him.
“Not being a lawyer, I would like to clarify that I did not receive any compensation,” he stressed, assuring that the mentioned 55 million euros “was the price agreed and paid by the state to Atlantic Gateway for the share in the capital of TAP SGPS, precisely because government forced to leave”, which he said he did not want and which was “imposed”.
“I agreed to negotiate my departure from the moment I realized that the government wanted to take control of the company at any cost, justifying it with a pandemic,” he explained.
David Neeleman assured that the government rejects “all other hypotheses of choosing a different path.”
The businessman also said that the Atlantic Gateway consortium “entered into a shareholder agreement giving it the right to exercise a put option in the event of certain events.”
“It is likely that without the agreement on my departure, litigation would have started, firstly, because Parpública had already violated the shareholder agreement when it prevented the IPO, and because we had contractual protection in case the company went public again,” he added.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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