The Portuguese government has officially revoked on the 25th of July 2011, special rights it held in several publicly quoted companies, including oil company Galp, energy group EDP and operator Portugal Telecom (PT). The government was under an obligation to revoke such rights as part of the terms of a 78 billion-euro plan to save the country from bankruptcy.
The special right given to the 500 action of catergory A (golden share) holded by the Portuguese gouvernement had been revoked with a vote in favor of 99% of the actionists presents that day.
A Golden Share is a position hold by the state in a comapny that garantes to the State a certain amount of special rights in certain strategic decisions in the Company. Such as investements, mergers and acquisitions etc.
The Portuguese Parliament had approved by the Decree 90/201 ( Decreto-Lei n.º 90/201) on the 25th of July the revocation. This was in line with the imposition made by the Troika (European Union, ECB and IMF).
During the debate that ook place to adopt the resolution it had been recalled, as a clear example for the revocation of the golden share, the recent case of acquisition that had as main characters PT, VIVO (Brasil) and Telefonica (Spain) and the intervention of PT between VIVO and Telefonica.
PT
Decreto-Lei n.º 90/2011, de 25 de Julho, que “elimina os direitos especiais detidos pelo accionista Estado na EDP ” Energias de Portugal, S. A., na GALP Energia, SGPS, S. A., e na Portugal Telecom, SGPS, S. A..”
