Nuno Ruiz and Miguel Mendes Pereira talk to the Global Competition Review

Portugal's Competition Authority is an anomaly: a world leader in merger control but poorly performing in cartel enforcement, writes the Global Competition Review in its 2 August edition. Looking at the low number of cases and fines regarding cartel practices, Miguel Mendes Pereira, Of Counsel at VdA says: "In France and Spain, there is a flurry of activity and increasing respect felt by companies for the competition authorities. This is fading in Portugal." On the other hand, Nuno Ruiz, partner at VdA stresses the fact that the "authority has very good case handlers and lawyers" and argues that it is "not fair to compare the merger and antitrust teams purely on their workloads," writes the GCR. In any case the new Competition Law, which came into force in July, has afforded the authority a raft of new powers. However, Ruiz stresses that although the "new law is better", "if the mentality and the management don't change, the law won't help".