Database

In case of mergers that may have an impact on the national security, a notification to the Superior Council of National Defence is required. However, to date, there are no cases of restrictions to mergers in the telecom or electronic communications sectors.

Romania revised its public procurement law in 2013. It is reprted that it exempts certain state owned enterprises from the public procurement law allowing them to use non-transparent procedures for their procurements.

The European Regulation No. 1042/2013 amending the Council Implementing Regulation No. 282/2011, declares that from January 2015, all supplies of telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services will be taxable at the place where the customer belongs. These include, inter alia:
- images or text, such as photos, screensavers, e-books and other digitised documents e.g. PDF files;
- music, films and games, including games of chance and gambling games, and of programmes on demand;
- online magazines website supply or web hosting services distance maintenance of programmes and equipment;
- supplies of software and software updates advertising space on a website.

Both EU and non-EU suppliers have to register for VAT purposes and comply with the relevant obligations of the Member State where the customer is established, has his/her permanent address or usually resides. This may be burdensome as there are 81 VAT rates across the 28 EU countries and the rates may vary between 3% (Luxembourg) to 27% (Hungary) across member states. Furthermore, member states impose varying thresholds at which companies must begin paying VAT, ranging from EUR 0 to EUR 60,000.

As an alternative to obtaining multiple VAT registrations in each Member State where a supplier has a customer, affected suppliers may be able to opt to account for VAT across the EU via a a web-portal in the Member State in which they are identified. Hence, the system, known as the Mini One-Stop Shop (MOSS) scheme, allows taxable persons to avoid registering in each Member State of consumption.

The EU Copyright Directive allows “fair compensation” for copyright owners. As a result, several Member States have imposed national levy systems.

In Romania, the private copy is subject to a compensatory remuneration established by Law No. 8/1996. The following levies apply (in per cent of CIF value):
- Minidisc: 3% per unit.
- Blue ray: 3% per unit.
- HD-DVD: 3% per unit.
- MP3 player: 0.50% per unit.
- CD writer (internal): 0.50% per unit.
- DVD recorder (external): 0.50% per unit.
- USB stick: 0.50% per unit.
- Audio recorder: 0.50% per unit.
- Video recorder: 0.50% per unit.
- TV and digital recorders with HDD or built-in storage medium, MP4 player, I-pod media player with AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, XVID, DIVX, XVID/VCD, SVCD, DVD, ACC, WMA, WMV, ASF, MP3, MP4, WAV, IMOD or any later version: 0.50% per unit.
- Mobile phone with internal memory (>64MB): 0.50% per unit.

The European de minimis threshold for import duties is harmonized. Goods with a value of up to 128 SDR / 150 EUR / 186 USD are exempted from customs duties. The VAT de minimis threshold is not harmonized within the EU and can vary between 10 and 22 EUR, i.e. Member States can decide on a value within this range to grant an exemption on VAT for imported goods.

According to Portugal's de minimis rule, goods with a value of up to 19 SDR / 22 EUR / 27 USD are exempted from VAT.

In 2010, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) found evidence of blocking or charging extra for the provision of VoIP services in mobile networks by certain mobile operators in Portugal among other countries.

The European Court of Justice has interpreted in 2014 that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may be ordered by national courts to block customer access to a copyright-infringing website. This ruling aims to limit online piracy.

In Portugal, the Self-Regulatory Agreement enables the streamlined blocking of sites which provide access to content infringing copyright. The mechanism targets sites containing more than 500 allegedly infringing links and those which indexes contain over 66% infringing content. The process is triggered by a rights-holder complaint. MAPINET collects evidence of unlawful distribution, with the General Inspection of Cultural Activities (IGAC) conducting assessment and notifying the internet services providers (ISPs) of the sites which are being targeted. ISPs need to restrict access to the websites through Domain Name System (DNS) blocking within 15 working days. The blocks expire after a year, unless IGAC determines otherwise.

Under the Directive on Data Retention, operators were required to retain certain categories of traffic and location data (excluding the content of those communications) for a period between six months and two years and to make them available, on request, to law enforcement authorities for the purposes of investigating, detecting and prosecuting serious crime and terrorism. On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared the Directive invalid. However, not all national laws which implemented the Directive have been overturned.

The law on data retention is still in force in Portugal. The retention period is 12 months.

In Portugal, all transfer of data outside the EU must be notified and, except when directed to whitelisted countries or when using model contracts, they have to be authorized by the relevant Commission. The Portuguese Data Protection Authority (DPA) also issued on 10 November 2015 specific guidelines on Intra‑Group Agreements ("IGA") involving transfers of personal data to non-EEA countries. The DPA considers that such transfers depend on prior authorisation from the DPA for the purposes of assessing if IGAs contain sufficient guarantees that the personal data transferred continues to benefit from the same level of protection as in the EEA countries.

For intra-corporate transferees (ICT), contractual service suppliers (CSS) as well as independent service suppliers (ISS), there is a limitation of stay of initially six months, but can be renewed for successive periods of two years.

For contractual service suppliers (CSS) and independent service suppliers (ISS), there are labour market tests. CSS and ISS only may work in Portugal if they are employed by employers which are located in the national territory and only in the event that there are no national, community or foreign citizens with legal residence in Portugal that can perform the desired functions, in respect for the principle of priority stipulated by the national legislation.

Portugal Telecom (PT) is the incumbent telecommunications operator in Portugal. Since its privatization, the Portuguese government owns 500 golden shares, which carry special rights over the company's management decisions.

Telecommunications networks and services in Portugal are fully liberalized and competition rules apply. Additionally, the Portuguese Government has abolished its golden share on the PT Group. Nonetheless, PT (the incumbent operator) owns and controls the access to the last mile infrastructure.

In 2012, the Portuguese prosecutors division DIAP (Department of Investigations and Criminal Acts) ruled against ACAPOR (the Association of Audiovisual Commerce of Cultural Works and Entertainment of Portugal) in a case the latter initiated in 2011 against approximately 2000 alleged illegal file sharers. DIAP declared that file-sharing for personal use is not infringing the law given that "users are both uploaders and downloaders in these file-sharing networks" and therefore the conduct is seen according to art. 75 no. 2a) and Art.81 b) of the Portugal Copyright law on private use.

In the European Union, there is no general principle for the use of copyright protected material comparable to the fair use/fair dealing principle in the US. Directive 2001/29/EC defines an optional, but exhaustive set of limitations from the author´s exclusive rights under the control of the “three-step test”. This is a clause in the Berne Convention that establishes three cumulative conditions to the limitations and exceptions of a copyright holder’s rights. The Directive has been transposed by Member States with significant freedom.

In Portugal, the Authors’ Rights Law implements the Directive and the three-step test. The Portuguese implementation has made generous use of the non-mandatory limitations and exceptions. A provision asserts that exceptions and limitations may not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work or other subject matter and may not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder.