The new episode of the podcast "A quem de Direito", a partnership between VdA and Jornal Económico (JE), is now available. Entitled "Competition, scrutiny and healthier companies", this fifth episode features Ricardo Bordalo Junqueiro, who explains the procedures for controlling company mergers, the impact of the Competition Authority’s decisions and the relationship between the Authority and the Portuguese business community.

Defending the Portuguese economy from abuses and anti-competitive practices that have a more substantial impact on families and companies is one of the Competition Authority ‘s primary objectives. From this starting point, Ricardo Bordalo Junqueiro explains that "merger control is a reality that serves to protect the economy and the markets".

"To simplify, if we had only two competitors in the market that decided to merge, we would have a monopoly and, in theory, we would have a competition problem because we would no longer have competition. This is an extreme example (there are usually no mergers of this nature in very normal circumstances), but it only explains that the Competition Authority acts to scrutinise and understand whether a particular transaction will lead to a reduction in the market structure,’ clarifies the VdA lawyer.

During this episode, Ricardo Bordalo Junqueiro explains that this evaluation process is complex and time-consuming. However, as he warns, this period has its limits. “The only challenge to a prohibition decision by the Competition Authority took 12 years to be resolved in court. It was reversed, the court eventually ruled in favour of the notifier, but it took 12 years. No company waits this long.” For this reason, the VdA lawyer believes that “this area deserves some thought from the legislature about possible reforms”.

The “A quem de Direito” podcast is organised by VdA in partnership with Jornal Económico. Each episode will cover topics such as agribusiness, governance, capital markets and Artificial Intelligence.

• This episode is available here.