Portugal interferes with mobile phone market

The Portuguese government issued a veto on Wednesday to stop the sale of shares in the largest Brazilian mobile phone company Vivo - owned by  Portugal Telecom  - to the Spanish telecom concern Telefónica. The government's intervention is based on the so-called "golden share," which gives it a right of veto on strategically important decisions of the former state company PT. The business newspaper Jornal de Negócios considers this totally unacceptable: "Using the 'golden share' is without precedent, extraordinary and probably illegal. It contradicts the market, the management and common decency. And it reveals how economically underdeveloped the country is. ... If one wants to have a say one should not privatise concerns, and if one does privatise them one should not nationalise them again later. The government has infringed the rights of the owners of Portugal Telecom (PT). ... Three quarters of the PT shareholders had decided to sell. ... The sale of Vivo would be bad for PT but not for its owners. Whatever the case, that is their private business.  What happened at the PT shareholders meeting was neither interventionism nor nationalism nor an administrative act. It was a defeat - for Portugal."

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