Lisbon, Feb. 10, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal's Competition Authority (AdC) has said that it intends to appeal a ruling by the Lisbon Court of Appeal that considered the former's administrative decision against banks convicted in the case known as the "banking cartel" to be time-barred, and that they therefore did not need to pay the fines imposed.
In a reply sent to Lusa, an official source from the AdC stated that the regulator "will not stop looking for all possible ways to have this procedural issue re-examined’ and notes that the Lisbon Court of Appeal's prescription decision, known today, ‘does not take away the PCA's right to condemn the banks for infringing the Competition Law."
In September last year, the Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court upheld fines totalling €225 million against 11 banks, ruling that it had been proven that, between 2002 and 2013, there was "collusion" between the banks when they exchanged information on loans (spreads and amounts granted) and that they "aligned commercial practices" distorting competition.
This argument was one that both the Competition Authority and the Public Prosecution Service had rejected, but which the Lisbon Court of Appeal on Monday upheld, taking the view that the statute of limitations applies and that the deadline was 11 February 2024.
In the same response, the AdC states that it has not yet been notified of the full judgement of the Lisbon Court of Appeal, but that it will appeal against it.
"Contrary to what the AdC and the Court of Competition, Regulation and Supervision (TCRS) have argued, the Lisbon Court of Appeal (TRL) ruled today that during the two years, three months and 15 days in which the case was under consideration by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the limitation period was not suspended," notes the AdC, arguing that if this were not the case, “the case would not be time-barred at this date.”
The regulator also emphasises that the conviction of the banks for infringing the Competition Act was confirmed by both the Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union and that the decision of the judges of the Court of Appeal does not detract from the AdC's conviction of the banks for the acts that became known as the "banking cartel".
"The TCRS confirmed the facts in question and the fines imposed, and the CJEU clarified the type of offence by confirming that it was an infringement by object (an expression of competition law that qualifies offences as so serious that they do not require proof of effects on consumers)," states the AdC.
In a news release on Monday, the TRL said that, in its ruling , it considered that the facts occurred between 2002 and March 2013, and therefore understood that the 2012 Competition Law applies, which provides for a maximum limitation period for the administrative offence procedure of 10 years and 6 months (that is, 5 years + 2 years and 6 months + 3 years suspension), and that the 2022 Competition Law does not apply, "which provides for a longer period of suspension of the limitation period for the administrative offence procedure."
The judges of the Court of Appeal also maintain that the reference for a preliminary ruling "does not (autonomously) suspend the limitation period" - with the limitation period ending on 1 September 2023 or, at the very least, if "the so-called Covid-19 laws are applied, on 11 February 2024."
LT/ARO // ARO.
Lusa
