The Legal 500

Expressions such as the “sub-prime crisis” and “credit crunch” have become colloquial jargon in the last 6 months as we saw the collapse of a several leading financial institutions, others effecting significant capital increases to cover losses as speculation by economists that the worst is yet to come continues. Banks are becoming more risk averse and a growing number of companies are experiencing financial difficulties. The Bank of England recently said “The financial crisis has moved into a new and difficult phase. Across the world, confidence in financial markets is fragile”.

The main objective of Decree Law n.º 18/2008 of 29 January 2008 (Public Contracts Code “PCC”) was to transpose directives n.º 2004/17 and 2004/18 of the European Parliament and Council dated 31 March 2004 to the Portuguese legal framework. However, it went much further than that and represents a profound modification to the Portuguese Public Procurement Law (PPL).

Long-term concessions provide governments keen to deliver quality infrastructures with both public control and the private management of operations. The concession contract is critical as it defines the commercial and operational parameters of the project and regulates the parties’ rights and obligations.

It is common ground that, generally, an arbitration clause binds only the persons or companies who sign the agreement reflecting the fact that arbitration is consensual in nature and dependent upon the parties’ agreement. There are, however, in accordance with the rules or practices of certain arbitration institutions, such as the case of the ICC Rules, exceptions to this rule, for example, inter alia, where a non-signatory parent company is required to participate, either voluntarily, with agreement of the original parties or against its will, in an arbitration between the signatories to a contract, one of which was its subsidiary.

1. The Relation of Cooperation between the Portuguese Republic and the Angolan Republic.

Due to its linguistic and cultural proximity, Portugal has been an important partner of the Angolan Republic in what concerns cooperation on several domains, namely in the economic and corporate area, as well as in banking, insurance and equity, new technologies of information and communication, legal and judicial cooperation, amongst others.

Confidentiality and legal privilege protection of internal communications produced by in-house lawyers was secured by Lisbon’s Commerce Tribunal, in a recent decision ruled within the scope of administrative offence proceedings started by the Portuguese Competition Authority

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On 23 April 2008, the European Parliament formally approved, without amendments, the Council's common position on the new Mediation Directive. Following its signature by the President of the European Parliament and by the President of the Council, the new Directive will enter into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. The purpose of the Directive is to facilitate access to dispute resolution and to promote the amicable settlement of disputes by encouraging the use of mediation and by ensuring a sound relationship between mediation and judicial proceedings.

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