[CrLf]

Up until the first attempt from Telefonica to buy PT’s share in Vivo, the government did have direct influence via a “golden share” left over from privatization. IIRC they (threatened to) use it to help PT’s management block the deal against the wishes of some shareholders (BES was one, I think). The golden share was already under scrutiny by EU regulators and was forfeited afterwards.

(There was a similar conflict some time before, when Sonae tried to buy PT outright, and I may be mixing up some of the details.)

The BES group bankruptcy is related to the later woes, but only incidentally. The charges against the ex-PM are, AFAIK, unrelated to any of this.

PT loaned 900M€ to BES Group which subsequently went bankrupt. PT had yearly profits of 700M€ so this wouldn’t be fatal. But they had to get a loan from its subsidiary Oi to meet cash flow and that shifted the balance of power. Suddenly, the tables had turned Oi owned PT.

Given Oi’s massive debt (15B€ IIRC), they proceeded to sell PT to Altice for 7B€, they raged through the company like a bull in a china shop, and the rest is history.