The APAT said the decision comes in a judgment dated 19 January that “concords” with the request by the association, which had asked the Supervision and Competition Court to make the Competition Regulator (AdC) set up an inquiry into Tabaqueira for what is considered to be “anti-competition behaviour in the tobacco distribution market”.

Praising the decision, the association has invited “all its members to actively participate in the inquiry the AdC has been forced to begin, so all Tabaqueira’s abusive behaviour is unequivocally demonstrated”.

The case began in 2011, when APAT and its members presented a complaint to the European Commission (EC) against Tabaqueira “for abuse of dominant position and abuse of economic dependency”.

The complaint centred round the “unilateral decision by Tabaqueira in its favour to crush the wholesalers’ margins and other abusive practices regarding discrimination between means of payment”.