The Portuguese Competition Authority (AdC) has unveiled (30 December) its strategic priorities for 2025, focusing on fostering economic growth, investment, and innovation through robust competition policies. The announcement, published on the AdC’s website, outlines key areas of intervention aimed at combating anti-competitive practices, ensuring market fairness, and adapting to challenges posed by digital transformation and artificial intelligence (AI).
Strategic Objectives for 2025
The AdC emphasized its commitment to protecting public interest by prioritizing initiatives that promote open and competitive markets. The outlined priorities include:
1. Combating Anti-Competitive Practices
- Focus on Cartels and Public Procurement: The AdC will intensify efforts to identify and sanction cartels and other horizontal agreements, particularly in public procurement and labor markets.
- Vertical Restrictions and Trade Associations: Continued scrutiny will be applied to vertical restraints and anti-competitive decisions by business associations.
- Proactive Detection: Enhanced internal structures and the integration of forensic IT tools will bolster the AdC’s capacity to detect infractions.
- Leniency Program: The AdC will continue promoting its leniency program as a critical tool for dismantling anti-competitive practices.
2. Addressing Abuse of Dominance
Investigations into abuses of dominant market positions will target sectors of high economic relevance, with a direct focus on consumer impact.
3. Merger Control
- The AdC will maintain rigorous and swift analysis of merger operations, with special attention to restrictive accessory clauses.
- A review of the current legal framework for merger control will begin, particularly in innovation-driven markets.
4. Advocacy for Competition
- A new outreach cycle will engage key sectors of the Portuguese economy, emphasizing the importance of combating collusion in public procurement and fostering competitive labor markets.
- The initiative will also explore the interplay between competition and sustainability.
5. Digital Economy and Artificial Intelligence
- Monitoring digital markets will remain a priority, focusing on compliance with the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) in collaboration with the European Commission.
- The AdC will publish thematic analyses on the impact of generative AI on competition, aiming to prevent market bottlenecks and the consolidation of market power.
6. Implementing Innovative Technologies
To enhance enforcement capabilities, the AdC plans to integrate AI into its investigative processes and deploy advanced forensic IT tools to detect anti-competitive practices more effectively.
