Several legislative instruments on VAT issues were published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 20 February, amending the rules for determining the place where services are supplied for the purposes of VAT: - the general rule will be reversed and services will now be taxed in the place of consumption as opposed to where the supplier has its establishment ...
1. On 31 December 2008, Law 67-A/2007, of 31 December, which enacted the 2008 State Budget, was published. In this booklet, we will discuss the main changes that will take place in our tax laws as a result of this Law, with effect from 1 January 2008. A) PERSONAL INCOME TAX (IRS) i) Capital income – IRS Category E 2 ...
This newsletter intends to provide our colleagues and friends with a rapid overview of the reforms that recently occurred in Portugal within commercial and corporate law, in respect of the debureaucratization of the treatment of commercial companies. I. ReformsThus, a substantial range of amendments has been implemented in the last years, with the purpose of simplifying the commercial companies’ incorporation, registration, merger, division, etc. procedures ...
Since we are in the season for the distribution of dividends, it is not without use to review and update, our last charter on this issue. It shall be recalled that in 2005 the Portuguese tax system streamlined its rules for the taxation of dividends, by harmonising rates which previously varied in accordance to the nature of the recipient of the dividends ...
The effects of the singular interpretation of the EC Treaty that the Court of Justice has been reinforcing for many years whilst assessing the compatibility of income tax legislation of the Member States with that Treaty, are now beginning to be felt, and to a considerable degree, here in Portugal ...
Further to the recent amends to the Portuguese Securities Code arising from the implementation of the EU Directives on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading and on insider dealing and market manipulation, the Portuguese Securities Exchange Commission (“CMVM”) approved a set of rulings and guidelines1 now creating an overall framework on the new Inside Information regime. I ...
Last March 15th was published Decree Law nr. 52/2006 implementing Directive 2003/6/CE, of the European Parliament and the Council, dated January 28th, on insider dealing and market manipulation, and Directive 2003/71/CE, of the European Parliament and the Council, dated November 4th, on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading and amending Directive 2001/34/CE ...
Recently, in 2005, the Portuguese tax system streamlined its rules for the taxation of dividends, by harmonising rates which previously varied in accordance to the nature of the recipient of the dividends. This, along with the introduction of some provisions aimed at dealing with schemes that used exempt entities to evade tax, helped to turn the taxation of dividends more coherent and simple ...
Twenty years after Portugal’s accession to the European Community, it has begun to be understood in Portugal that membership of the EU does not merely constitute for us a source of subsidies and aids of any kind, increasingly less so since the latest enlargement from fifteen to twenty-five Member States. It is, rather, a source of regulation for companies (and directly or indirectly for consumers) in a wide range of economic areas ...
In a long-awaited judgment, the Court of First Instance of the European Communities (“CFI”) partially upheld on December 14, 2005, the European Commission’s decision of July 3, 2001 to block the proposed acquisition of Honeywell International Inc. (“Honeywell”) by General Electric Company (“GE”). In its decision, the Commission had considered that the merger should be blocked for three sets of reasons ...
Since its creation by Decree-Law No. 10/2003 of January 18, the new Portuguese Competition Authority (“PCA”) has analysed more than 150 concentrations. It is said to analyse around 5 concentrations a month. In 2004 and 2005, the PCA reported 130 notified concentrations, 125 of which had issued decisions and 11 cases in which said decisions were reached following second phase proceedings ...
A distribution franchise agreement allows a producer of goods or services (the “Franchisor”) to transfer to another entity (the “Franchisee”), in return of a fee, the commercialisation of such products under the Franchisor’s trade mark(s) and distinctive signs, in conformity with its uniform business method and upon the provision, by the Franchisor to the Franchisee, of technical know how and regular assistance ...
The commercial distribution of goods and services developed with the dynamics between sophisticated global markets, where the European Internal Market is integrated, with traditional markets of a local character or national dimension. The type of contract adopted by the producers or importer companies in order for their products or services to reach, through the commercial intermediaries, the final users – consumers or not – i. e ...
One of the essential components of organizing sport events is the ticketing system. Usually implemented by the Organizing Committees (OC), it is not unusual that these agreements contravene EC Law. In the Italy 1990 World Cup, the OC entered into a worldwide exclusive agreement of ground entrance tickets with a single tour travel agency for the purpose of putting together package tours for the event ...
Dominant companies have special responsibility to ensure that the way they do business doesn’t prevent competition on the merits and does not harm consumers and innovation», said European Competition Commissioner Mário Monti, regarding the Commission’s Microsoft decision dated March 24th, 2004 ...
The interoperability information on Microsoft’s decision deserves special attention by the undertakings that have a dominant position in the market. Intellectual property rights, granted as an incentive for the creation of innovation and as a tool to recoup the investments made by companies, used to be understood as providing several rights to its owners ...
At this moment it makes sense to publish a newsletter exclusively on issues related with the Media sector, not only due to the circumstance that it is a sector that has deserved front page coverage in the Media, particularly in relation to the acquisition movements verified (we need only recall the recent assignment of 49% of the equity of SIC, of 100% of the equity of Lusomundo Serviços or of the put option of a significant part of the equity of Media Capital) but also to the recent legislative
This Newsletter approaches several issues, in a general and simple manner that the format requires, which we consider may be of interest to businessmen and companies, with the purpose to inform them or even to challenge them to new forms of organisation and development of their businesses ...
The telecommunications sector is nowadays one of those sectors in which its regulation assumes a larger presence and visibility at a national level, as well as at European and international levels. In fact, rare is the week – if not the day – when agents of the sector are not confronted with the adoption, by the different regulatory authorities of the sector, of decisions that have a significant impact for the activity undertaken by telecommunications operators and for market conditions ...
The Labour Code approved by Law no. 99/2003 of 27 August will come into force on 1 December next, the first stage of the labour law reform thus coming to a close. Driven by the pressing need to endow the country with more flexible and investment, productivity and employment generating labour laws, the reform was at first enthusiastically backed by the employers’ confederations and firmly opposed by the trade unions ...
