Portugal’s Quiet Bank Cartel Victory May Cut Costs for Foreign Clients

Foreign account-holders in Portugal woke up this year to a paradox: the country’s biggest banks have managed to cancel €225 M in cartel fines, yet no court has said the alleged price-fixing never happened. Behind the legal gymnastics lies a lesson on how Portugal’s competition rules—and the fees you pay for everyday banking—may change sooner than many expatriates expect.

What expats should watch in the "bank cartel" saga

Not all banking news ripples into the lives of non-Portuguese residents, but this one does. The financial groups under scrutiny—Caixa Geral de Depósitos, BCP, Santander Totta, BPI, Montepio and several others—collectively hold the lion’s share of expat current accounts and mortgage loans. A long confrontation with the Autoridade da Concorrência (AdC) over information-sharing practices could now reshape service fees, loan spreads and even the arrival of new digital rivals.

A decade-long investigation ends… or does it?

The affair began in 2013 when Barclays blew the whistle on daily e-mails traders allegedly exchanged to align credit terms between 2002 and 2013. The AdC branded the conduct a “very serious” restriction of competition and, in 2019, imposed record sanctions totaling €225 M. Three judicial rounds followed: the Competition Court confirmed the fines in 2024; the Lisbon Court of Appeal quashed them in February, citing statutory time-limits; the Constitutional Court in June refused to reopen the case. Each decision trimmed the AdC’s room for manoeuvre, yet none overturned the factual finding that sensitive data had indeed been swapped.

The prescription debate: when time beats the prosecutor

Portugal’s legal buzzword of the year is prescrição—the expiry of the State’s power to punish once a set period elapses. The Appeal Court calculated that the ten-and-a-half-year ceiling, rooted in the 2012 competition statute, had already run out months before the lower court’s 2024 ruling. Justices disagreed among themselves, and critics note that in a separate energy case the same court paused the countdown while waiting for guidance from the Court of Justice of the EU. That inconsistency, AdC president Nuno Cunha Rodrigues told lawmakers, “erodes legal certainty” and encourages well-funded defendants to litigate until the clock does the job. A 2022 legislative tweak now stops the clock during appeals, but it came too late to rescue the cartel file.

Why no one was acquitted, despite no fines being paid

Foreign observers often equate annulled penalties with exoneration; Portuguese law says otherwise. The Appeal Court explicitly stated that liability for the infringement was not being reviewed, only the State’s right to enforce monetary punishment. That nuance allowed the AdC to claim moral victory—“Nenhum tribunal absolveu” (no tribunal has acquitted), as Cunha Rodrigues repeated in Parliament. Still, for practical purposes the banks keep their balance sheets intact: half of the fines had been frozen through guarantees, and those guarantees will now be lifted.

AdC’s broader strategy: retail banking inquiry and potential reforms

Stung by the setback, the watchdog has accelerated a sectoral inquiry into retail banking, launched in July, to map entry barriers and the ease with which clients can switch providers. Parallel talks inside the government explore tighter deadlines for courts, extra investigative powers for the AdC and a possible overhaul of the clemency programme that rewards first movers such as Barclays. European directives pending transposition could further widen the agency’s toolkit, from dawn-raid protocols to forensic AI.

Could this touch your wallet?

For expats, two threads matter. First, if regulators conclude that limited competition inflated fees for transfers, cartões multibanco or mortgage spreads, banks may pre-emptively polish their offers. Second, the mere prospect of tougher enforcement is encouraging fintech challengers and foreign online banks to eye the Portuguese market. A livelier landscape could translate into lower maintenance costs and easier cross-border money management—welcome news for anyone juggling incomes in euros, pounds or dollars.

Looking ahead: legal uncertainty and opportunities for new players

The saga is not fully over; the AdC has filed a last-ditch complaint to the conference of Constitutional Court judges, arguing that the Appeal Court misread constitutional safeguards. Even if that effort fails, the political momentum for reform is unmistakable. Law firms already advise multinationals to revisit their compliance manuals, while venture-capital funds whisper that Portugal’s still-concentrated banking sector may finally open up. For foreign residents, that could mean more choice, fewer fees and a clearer rulebook—outcomes worth watching as the legal dust settles.