Sérvulo wins appeal for EuroBIC in competition case
SÉRVULO IN THE PRESS 18 Feb 2025 in Iberian Lawyer
Sérvulo & Associados successfully represented Banco EuroBIC in the Lisbon Court of Appeal, which ruled on February 10 that the long-running competition case against 14 banks was time-barred and ordered its dismissal. The case dates back to 2012, when Portugal’s Competition Authority launched an investigation into alleged anti-competitive practices by 14 banks. In 2019, the regulator fined 13 banks a total of €225 million, with Banco EuroBIC receiving one of the lowest fines—€500,000—for alleged conduct linked to its predecessor, Banco Português de Negócios (BPN).
The banks challenged the decision before the Competition, Regulation, and Supervision Court (TCRS), which upheld the fines on September 20, 2024, without declaring the case time-barred. They then appealed to the Lisbon Court of Appeal, which found that the statute of limitations had already expired at least seven months before the TCRS ruling. The court subsequently declared the case time-barred and ordered its dismissal.
Portuguese competition law allows for a statute of limitations of up to ten and a half years, a period that has been criticized as excessive and inconsistent with legal certainty and fairness. A significant factor in the case’s delay was the TCRS’s decision on April 28, 2022, to refer preliminary questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)—a move that was discretionary and unavailable to the banks. The CJEU proceedings took two years and three months to conclude.
The Lisbon Court of Appeal did not rule on the merits of the Competition Authority’s decision, meaning it did not uphold the first-instance conviction. Under Portuguese competition law, no further appeals can be made against the court’s ruling. On this case, Sérvulo’s multidisciplinary team, specializing in European & competition law and litigation, was led by partner Miguel Gorjão-Henriques, with key contributions from partners Alberto Saavedra and Cláudia Amorim (all three pictured from left to right).
Read more in Iberian Lawyer, here.
