“The appeal is deemed completely unfounded, maintaining, in its entirety, the conviction of the Appellant [TAP] with a fine of 50,000 euros, for the provision, intentionally, of the foreseen administrative offense, [...] substantiated in the violation of the duty to disclose information with quality”, reads the Competition Court ruling dated April 8th and released this week by the CMVM.

At issue is the fine imposed by the CMVM on TAP for considering that it provided “untrue” information about the departure of former administrator Alexandra Reis.

“The information released by TAP in the statement of February 4, 2022, was not true, as it was inconsistent with reality, as it did not mention the agreement concluded between TAP and Alexandra Reis and the desire of both to terminate existing contractual relations, following a negotiation process initiated by TAP and was not clear, as the use of the expression 'waiver' corresponds to an equivocal term, which did not allow recipients of the information to know the reality immediately, namely the existence of a signed agreement between TAP and Alexandra Reis”, reads the note published by CMVM, on November 29th.

This case became public at a time when Alexandra Reis was already Secretary of State for the Treasury on Minister Fernando Medina's team and led to the creation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry.

The CMVM considered that TAP's conduct violated “intentionally, the duty to disclose quality information”, which constitutes a very serious offense, punishable by a fine of between 25,000 and 5,000,000 euros.