Constitutional Court rejects appeals in banking cartel

The Constitutional Court (TC) has rejected the appeals filed by the Competition Authority and the Public Prosecutor's Office in an attempt to halt the statute of limitations in the banking cartel case, which provided for fines of 225 million euros to 11 banks, reported the newspaper Público this Saturday. According to the newspaper, the TC decided that it will not even consider the appeals filed by the Competition Authority (AdC) and the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP), leaving only “a glimmer of hope for the prosecution”.

The AdC and the MP wanted the TC to pronounce itself on whether or not the decision of the Lisbon Court of Appeal to count towards the limitation period the two-year period in which the case was awaiting a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union was unconstitutional, as well as the interpretation of which law was applicable to the case.

However, the judge-advisor of the Constitutional Court “criticizes the questions raised, saying that it is only his responsibility to 'scrutinize the constitutionality of legal norms' and not to “indict the merit or goodness of the appealed decisions”.

Additionally, it considers that the MP lacks legitimacy for raising questions of unconstitutionality that it had not raised until now and for questioning aspects that, even if they were considered unconstitutional, would not alter the decision of the Court of Appeal from which it appeals.

Despite this further defeat for the Competition Authority and the Public Prosecutor's Office, the newspaper notes that the decision “is not yet final”, and may be “the subject of a complaint to the TC conference”, and therefore has not become final.

The AdC told Público that it is analyzing the possibility of a complaint.

The Competition Authority and the Public Prosecutor's Office wanted to see 11 national banks fined a total of 225 million euros for breaches of competition law related to the exchange of sensitive information on credits between 2002 and 2013: CGD (82 million euros), BCP (60 million), Santander (35.65 million), BPI (30 million), Banco Montepio (13 million euros), BBVA (2.5 million), BES (700 thousand), BIC (500 thousand), Crédito Agrícola (350 thousand), UCI (150 thousand), with Barclays also being convicted, but without having to pay a fine for having been the whistleblower.

Banif did not appeal the initial decision, as it had only been sentenced to a fine of 1,000 euros.

The regulator began the investigation in 2012, but the application of fines was only decided in 2019, with the banks challenging the decision at the Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court in Santarém.

This confirmed the AdC process in 2024, after a two-year hiatus awaiting clarification from the Court of Justice of the European Union, a period that the court ruled would not count towards the limitation periods, in an understanding that was later contradicted by the Court of Appeal.

The Constitutional Court now considered that it made no sense to pronounce itself on the matter, based on the appeals presented.

According to Público, the case “is being treated as urgent”, but “even the most benevolent reading” of the prescription count suggests that this will happen in May 2026.