Portugal enacts law to prevent expiration of pending competition cases

A new Portuguese law, Law No. 51/2026, enters into force on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, to prevent the statute of limitations from expiring on pending competition law violation cases.

The legislation ensures that the competition law version in effect since 2022 applies to all processes pending at the time the new law takes effect. This measure aims to guarantee that older administrative offense processes currently being adjudicated in court do not expire, securing the application of the updated rules for calculating limitation periods.

The law follows a project by the PCP and was prompted by the outcome of the ‘banking cartel’ case. In that instance, while the Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court (TCRS) initially convicted over a dozen banks for commercial information exchange occurring between 2002 and 2013, the Lisbon Court of Appeal (TRL) later ruled the process had expired due to differing interpretations of limitation rules.