Meo sues Portuguese state for 81.7 million euros over Huawei 5G exclusion

Telecoms operator Meo has decided to bring legal action against the Portuguese state, seeking 81.7 million euros in compensation following the exclusion of Huawei equipment from Portugal’s 5G networks, the newspaper Público reported on Monday.

The outlet cites information that will be recorded on the Citius portal, relating to proceedings brought in particular against the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the State’s Legal Centre, which were filed on 24 April this year with the Lisbon Administrative Court.

Meo, which is part of the Altice Portugal portfolio of brands, has taken this step because it believes it has been harmed by “administrative decisions” of the Security Assessment Commission, operating under the Higher Council for Cyberspace Security, according to Público. The company also stressed that it has suffered “special and abnormal damage” as a result of those decisions.

At issue is a state body which, in the first half of 2023, adopted a resolution highlighting the “high risk” involved in using equipment from suppliers based in countries that are not EU, NATO or OECD members for “the security of national 5G networks and services”, as was first reported by the Lusa news agency. This applied in cases where, in addition, “the legal order of the country” in which the provider was “domiciled” or established 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 direct reference to any countries or companies in the sector, although Huawei was the main target of the ban stemming from this assessment, both in Portugal and in other European countries where similar exclusions were introduced.

According to the business daily ECO, Huawei technology had been widely used by Meo in developing its 5G network, and the decision forced the company to rethink how it runs this part of its business.

Huawei itself, moreover, had already filed administrative proceedings against the resolution with the Lisbon Administrative Court in September 2023. Nine months later, an official source at the Security Assessment Commission told Lusa that the case was following “its judicial course”.

In November 2023, Vodafone Portugal’s chief executive, Luís Lopes, said in an interview with Expresso that the Security Assessment Commission’s decision to exclude Huawei equipment was more “aggressive” than measures applied in other EU member states and therefore “not particularly well judged”.