Business 18 August 2026

€880m in competition fines were about to expire. A one-article law changed that today

Law 51/2026 takes effect on 18 August and settles a split between two Portuguese courts over when the clock stops on antitrust cases. Nineteen proceedings across banking, retail, energy, telecoms and transport are affected.

More than a dozen Portuguese banks were convicted at first instance for swapping commercial information between 2002 and 2013. They never paid. Lisbon’s appeal court ruled the case time-barred, and the whole thing evaporated.

From today that particular escape route closes for the cases still running. Law 51/2026 was published in Diário da República on Monday and comes into force on Tuesday.

One article, one job

The text creates nothing new. It states that Law 17/2022 — which transposed the EU directive on national competition authorities and amended the 2012 competition regime — applies to proceedings that were already pending when it took effect. That is the entire law.

The argument it settles is narrow and expensive. When a Portuguese court refers a question to the Court of Justice of the European Union, does the limitation clock pause? The specialist Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court said yes. The Lisbon Court of Appeal said no, over the dissent of one of its three judges. Parliament has now written the first reading into law.

What is riding on it

Nineteen administrative offence proceedings are live across banking, large retail, energy, telecoms and transport, carrying fines of roughly €880 million between them. Sixteen have already gone up to the European court on appeal. The earliest fines were due to lapse this month and in December.

The Competition Authority has always argued the current rules already covered these cases, while conceding the amendment clarifies the legal framework and improves predictability. Read: it would rather not lose another case on a technicality. It is the same regulator that this summer cleared the owner of Fnac to buy 11 Staples stores.

How it got here

The bill came from the Communist Party and passed its final vote on 17 July with PCP, PS, Chega, Livre, BE, PAN and JPP in favour, PSD and CDS-PP against, and IL abstaining. It had already been rejected once in committee and only returned to the floor after a Communist procedural motion.

The real test is still ahead. A law can say the clock pauses; the courts hearing those nineteen cases now have to agree it applies to them.

By Beatriz Mota

Photo: Cédric Puisney / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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