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Telecoms operator Meo has decided to bring legal action against the Portuguese state, seeking €81.7 million in compensation following the exclusion of Huawei equipment from Portugal’s 5G networks, the newspaper Público reported on Monday (source in Portuguese).
The outlet cites information that will appear on the Citius portal, regarding proceedings brought in particular against the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the State Legal Centre, which were filed on 24 April this year with the Administrative Court of the Lisbon District.
This step by Meo, which is part of Altice Portugal’s brand portfolio, was taken on the grounds that it had been harmed by “administrative decisions” of the Security Assessment Commission, within the framework of the Higher Council for Cyberspace Security, according to Público. The company also said it had suffered “special and abnormal damage” as a result of those measures.
At issue is a state body which, in the first half of 2023, issued a decision highlighting the “high risk” of using equipment from suppliers based in countries that are not member states of the EU, NATO or the OECD for the “security of national 5G networks and services”, according to initially reported by the Lusa news agency (source in Portuguese). It also covered cases where, in addition, “the legal order of the country” in which the provider was “domiciled” or bound allowed the government to exercise “control, interference or pressure over its activities in third countries”.
The decision, the Portuguese news agency recalled, did not make any direct reference to countries or companies in the sector, although Huawei was the main target of the ban that followed from this assessment, both in Portugal and in other European countries where similar exclusions were introduced.
Also according to the newspaper ECO (source in Portuguese), Huawei technology had been widely used by Meo in the development of its 5G network.
Huawei itself had already filed, in September 2023, an administrative action against the decision in question with the Administrative Court of the Lisbon District. An official source at the Security Assessment Commission told Lusa nine months later, that the case was following “its judicial course”.
In November 2023, Vodafone Portugal’s chief executive, Luís Lopes, in an interview with “Expresso” (source in Portuguese), described the Security Assessment Commission’s decision to exclude Huawei equipment as more “aggressive” than that applied in other EU member states and therefore “not particularly well judged”.
NOS CEO Miguel Almeida took the same view. Speaking at the 33rd Digital Business Congress of APDC (the Portuguese Association for the Development of Communications) in May 2024, in comments quoted by “Dinheiro Vivo (source in Portuguese)”, he said: “It is worth emphasising that the decision [which excluded Huawei from 5G] goes well beyond what has been common practice in Europe, in terms of the range of network components that are covered by this measure.”