Shopping centres may sue State over “unconstitutional” law

 In News, Retail

Portugal’s shopping centre groups are considering suing the State over a parliamentary bill that would allow the retroactive suspension of the payment of shopping centre rents which they say are “unconstitutional and damaging”.

The Portuguese Association of Shopping Centres (APCC) says it will not “hesitate to sue the Portuguese State” in order to claw back the losses caused by the “unacceptable riding roughshod over the law”, as a result of applying “disproportionate and unconstitutional laws,” states the association’s president António Sampaio de Mattos.
Portuguese MPs have approved a legislative bill from the party PAN (People, Animals and Nature) that aims to clarify the regime that will make shopkeepers and restaurant proprietors exempt from paying the fixed rents for units in shopping centres right back to March when the State of Emergency was announced.
The exemption has been backdated to the 13 March and would cover until the end of December this year, but the APCC says this vote and law, if applied, is “unconstitutional” with “perverse effects” that are “destabilising the economic activity of shopping centres”.
According to the statement from the APCC, shopping centres will effectively be giving shop keepers “the biggest discounts out of all the countries in Europe” from April to December.