Nuno de Oliveira Garcia in «Bom dia Portugal» | RTP

Summary of legislative and jurisprudential developments relating to the automotive sector.

Act 10/2025 amends Act 44/2002 and requires the updating of regulations for customer services. It comes into force on 28/12/2025, with a twelve-month adaptation period. It enhances accessibility and personalised assistance; it prohibits answering machines and call forwarding from toll-free numbers to paid lines. It requires the separation of customer services from commercial functions and specialised staff training, including assistance to vulnerable groups. It also expands customer information, prohibits complaints by telephone and allows co-official languages. It also establishes acknowledgement with an identification code and new grounds for non-acceptance; sets a deadline of one month for resolving complaints to customer services and ninety days for complaints to the Directorate-General for Insurance and Pension Funds, and specifies the requirements for acceptance.

In preparation for the Alimentaria and Hostelco 2026 trade fairs, the Commercial Section of the Barcelona First Instance Court has approved a rapid response protocol to deal promptly with any potential conflicts relating to intellectual and industrial property rights (patents,trademarks, designs, and copyright), as well as trade secrets and unfair competition issues that may arise during these events.

During the transitional period of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court, national courts retain jurisdiction to hear cases concerning classic European patents, without the need for the proprietor to have exercised the opt-out option, i.e. without the need to have excluded the jurisdiction of the Unified Patent Court over such patents. However, the Venice Court ruling discussed here considers that national courts may only be used if the opt-out has been exercised, contradicting the provisions of Article 83 of the Agreement.

Royal Legislative Decree 1/2015, of 24 July, approving the recast version of the Medicinal Products and Medical Devices (Guarantees and Rational Use) Act, prohibits healthcare professionals with prescribing powers from having a direct pecuniary interest in activities related to medicines. This prohibition does not extend to indirect interests, as distinguished in Article 4 of said legislative decree. Judgment no. 483/2025 of the High Court of Justice of the Basque Country concludes that mere membership of a group of companies does not entail incompatibility if each entity retains real autonomy.

This paper presents changes introduced by Act 9/2025 to promote decarbonisation in transport, including obligation for transport entities to calculate and report their carbon footprint, the drawing up of sustainable mobility plans in large centres of activity and companies, measures to electrify ports and promote renewable fuels, the deployment of charging points and the publishing of a national grid capacity map.

Act 10/2025 reforms the regime governing financial institutions’ customer services and introduces a procedure for the submission, processing and resolution of complaints filed by their customers, including special provisions when such customers are consumers, such as a free helpline and the availability of channels that allow for personalised service to vulnerable consumers or people without access to certain basic financial services that are not defined in the new law.

The Bolar clause allows studies and trials necessary to obtain marketing authorisations for medicinal products to be carried out without infringing patents. Its scope has grown during the passage of the pharmaceutical legislative package, incorporating more actors and more activities, to include participation in public tenders before the patent expires. This extension raises questions about compatibility with the TRIPS Agreement, which only allows limited exceptions to patent rights. Participation in tenders could be considered an offer to sell, thus violating the limits set by that agreement.

With regard to actions under the Building (Unified Regulation) Act, the Supreme Court reaffirms that there is no continuing damage, but rather permanent damage. The solution is more efficient for all parties, as well as fairer. Also cheaper for the judicial system.