Prosecutors Call the Collapse of the Old TAP Holding Accidental, and Azul's 189 Million Euro Claim Gets Harder
The insolvency administrators said the same thing in May. Azul argues the assets were moved to build a good TAP and a bad one; the holding was left with 23.8 million euros against 1.35 billion in claims.
The Public Prosecution Service has told a Lisbon commercial court that the collapse of the old TAP holding company was accidental rather than blameworthy, a conclusion that makes the Brazilian airline Azul's 189 million euro claim considerably harder to win.
The opinion is dated 10 July and is disclosed in TAP's first-half results for 2026. It finds that the insolvency of TAP SGPS, renamed Siavilo after the group was restructured, should be qualified as "fortuita", the Portuguese legal term for an insolvency that happened without fault. Two months earlier, on 4 May, the insolvency administrators had reached the same view. TAP notes what it calls "the convergence of the opinions". The decision itself belongs to the court.
What Azul is arguing
Azul went to the Juízo de Comércio de Lisboa in November 2025 seeking the opposite qualification: that the insolvency was culpable. Its case is that the removal of assets from the old holding, including the stakes in TAP SA, in the regional carrier Portugália and in the catering company Cateringpor, together with the insolvency of the holding itself, formed part of an "architected plan" to frustrate payment of its credits.
In a separate action filed in March of this year, Azul put the same argument more bluntly. It alleges a scheme to create a "good TAP", the operating airline, and a "bad TAP", the holding, by moving the viable assets to the former in order to destroy the solvency of the latter. It asks the court to disregard the formal separation between the two entities on the basis that they functioned as one, and to make the airline answer for the debt. TAP filed its defence on 13 May.
Where the debt came from
The money dates to 2016. Under the recapitalisation agreed at the previous privatisation, Azul lent 90 million euros to TAP SGPS and the state holding company Parpública lent 30 million. At the time David Neeleman was simultaneously the largest shareholder in TAP, through Atlantic Gateway, and the owner and chairman of Azul. The bonds carried 7.5 percent interest, compounded, and matured in March 2026. With that interest rolled up, the claim now stands at 189 million euros.
The dispute broke into the open in 2024, when Azul demanded recognition of the guarantees attached to the loan under a Security Agreement that included TAP's Miles & Go loyalty programme. TAP SGPS refused. In November of that year TAP SA and Siavilo sued Azul to have the bond loan reclassified as a shareholder loan, which would subordinate it to the full losses borne by the holding's shareholders. Azul contested that reading.
A holding with 23.8 million euros and 1.35 billion in claims
It was TAP itself that applied for Siavilo's insolvency, declared in August last year by the Tribunal da Comarca de Lisboa. Creditors have lodged claims of roughly 1.35 billion euros against the holding, of which 1.11 billion is owed to TAP. Liquidation was approved in October. The only asset on the balance sheet was 23.8 million euros in deposits.
The court may now rule straight away in line with the two opinions, or first notify the debtor and personally summon anyone it considers could be affected by a culpable qualification, giving them fifteen days to object. The outcome matters beyond the litigation: the claim has shadowed the airline's sale process since the start, and the government has yet to choose between Air France-KLM and Lufthansa.
