The BES Commercial Paper Indignant and Cheated Association (AIEPC) sent the letter in Portuguese and English on Wednesday, to leaders including Angela Merkel of Germany, François Hollande of France and Mariano Rajoy of Spain, as well as the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk.


In it, the association said that the "deviant" way in which the Bank of Portugal had applied a 2014 directive on bank resolution in a way that brought it into question. It argued that "no assessment was made of BES's assets before the resolution measure and the transitional entity 'Novo Banco' suffers from elementary faults of form and governance."


The Bank of Portugal in August last year took BES over after it had announced first-half losses of €3.6 billion, and split it into a new 'good bank', named Novo Banco, and a 'bad bank' containing the toxic assets, including investments in group companies. The former was taken over by the banking sector resolution fund with the help of a massive state loan.


Earlier this month, the Bank of Portugal announced that the period of negotiation with a potential buyer for Novo Banco - widely reported to be China's Anbang - had ended without agreement. According to media reports, negotiations are now to start with another company from China, Fosun, while another valid binding proposal, from Apollo of the US, remains on the table.


Members of AIEPC argue that they were deceived by BES into believing that the commercial paper was a low-risk investment.