The Autoridade da Concorrência (AdC) is the

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

name for the country's

competition regulator A competition regulator is the institution that oversees the functioning of the markets. And the Law in which it takes cognizance of situations having any type of impediments and distortions on the markets and correct them is the competition law ...

, an organisation established to ensure fair commercial competition in Portugal.

Notable cases

In 2017, AdC ruled to fine the Portugal’s largest company, the utility

EDP Group EDP - Energias de Portugal (formerly Electricidade de Portugal) is a Portuguese electric utilities company, headquartered in Lisbon. It was founded in 1976 through the merger of 14 nationalised electricity companies. History EDP was founded as '' ...

, 28.7 million euros ($31.54 million) and retailer

Sonae Sonae is a multinational business group based in Maia, Porto District, Portugal. It is present in 90 countries, operating in several sectors, including retail, financial services, shopping centres management, software and information systems, me ...

9.6 million euros for an illegal non-competition pact between their subsidiaries; under a 2012 agreement, Sonae had committed itself to not competing against EDP in electricity trading in Portugal for two years. In 2019, AdC fined four insurance companies a total of 54 million euros ($59.6 million) for “cartel practices”, with the biggest fines imposed on the local branch of

Zurich Insurance Group Zurich Insurance Group Ltd is a Swiss insurance company, headquartered in Zürich, and the country's largest insurer. As of 2021, the group is the world's 112th largest public company according to ''Forbes'' Global 2000s list, and in 2011 it ran ...

and Portuguese insurer Lusitania. Also in 2019, AdC fined 14 banks a total of 225 million euros ($248.6 million) for concerted practices of exchanging sensitive commercial information on credit products. The fines were imposed on Portugal’s biggest bank at the time,

Caixa Geral de Depósitos Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) () is a Portuguese state-owned banking corporation, and the largest bank in Portugal, established in Lisbon in 1876. CGD now has presence in 23 countries spanning four continents through branches, representative ...

, as well as

Millennium BCP Portuguese Commercial Bank ( pt, Banco Comercial Português, BCP) is a Portuguese bank that was founded in 1985 and is the largest private bank in the country. BCP is a member of the Euronext 100 stock index and its current chief executive officer ...

BBVA Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (), better known by its initialism BBVA, is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Bilbao, Spain. It is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, and is present ...

, Banco BIC Português,

Banco Português de Investimento Banco Português de Investimento (BPI, ) is a major privately owned bank in Portugal owned by Spanish bank CaixaBank. It runs the banking business with companies, institutional and private clients. As ''Sociedade Portuguesa de Investimentos'' it ...

(BPI),

Banco Espírito Santo Banco Espírito Santo (BES) was a Portuguese bank based in Lisbon that on 4 August 2014 was split in two banks: Novo Banco, which kept its healthy operations, and a "bad bank" to keep its toxic assets. It once was the second-largest listed Portu ...

, BANIF,

Barclays Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

, Caixa de Credito Agricola, Montepio,

Santander Santander may refer to: Places * Santander, Spain, a port city and capital of the autonomous community of Cantabria, Spain * Santander Department, a department of Colombia * Santander State, former state of Colombia * Santander de Quilichao, a m ...

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

and Unión de Créditos Inmobiliarios (UCI). In 2020, AdC imposed fines worth a total 304 million euros on six supermarket chains, including retailers

and

Jerónimo Martins Jerónimo Martins SGPS, SA (JM) is a Portuguese corporate group that operates in food distribution and specialised retail. It operates more than 4,900 stores in Portugal, Poland, and Colombia. The group is the majority owner of Jerónimo Mart ...

, and two beverage suppliers for illegally fixing prices between 2008 and 2017.Sergio Goncalves (21 December 2020)
Portugal's competition authority fines 6 retail chains 304 mln euros
''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...

''.

References

External links

Autoridade da Concorrência
Competition regulators Consumer organisations in Portugal Regulators of Portugal {{Europe-law-stub

Notable cases

See also

References

External links