Portugal’s Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court (TCRS) has confirmed the regulator ANACOM’s decision to impose fines on Meo, Nos and Vodafone for having increased prices and not informing their customers that they had the right to terminate contracts without any charge.
According to ANACOM, the Competition Court’s rulings in favour of ANACOM were handed down between June (Nos decision), September (Meo) and October (Vodafone). In all cases, the court essentially confirmed ANACOM’s decisions, only adjusting the value of the fines imposed. In the case of NOS, the fine increased to €4.2 million, in the case of Vodafone the value increased to €2 million, and in the case of Meo the value was set at €5.3 million.
Nos, Meo and Vodafone have already appealed the court’s decisions to the Lisbon Court of Appeal.
ANACOM notes that its decisions date back to November 2022, when it applied a single fine worth €5.2 million to Nos, a single fine worth €6.7 million to Meo and a single fine exceeding €3 million to Vodafone, as it was proven that they did not communicate to subscribers their right to terminate contracts free of charge, if they did not agree with the proposed price increase.
In the case of Meo and Nos, it was still at issue that the price increase proposal was not communicated adequately, as, in some cases, the specific value of the increase was only made known to subscribers long after they had been informed that the prices would increase and, in other cases, due to the fact that the concrete value of the proposed increase was not made available in the form and location indicated in the communication of the contractual change.
In the Nos process, it was also proven that subscribers were not informed of the proposed price increase at least 30 days in advance.
