In a statement, EDP said that it "absolutely" refuted the Competition Authority’s imputations, which "lack factual, legal and economic support, plus the fact that, throughout the process in question, the Competition Authority had largely based its conclusions superficially on elements that contradict them or do not allow them to be sustained".

"The auditor hired by the State confirmed that EDP Produção acted in accordance with the legal framework in force and the incentives that result from it.

EDP and EDP Produção therefore reaffirm that they have always complied with the existing legal and contractual framework and the competition rules", the company said.

The Competition Authority announced that it had fined EDP Produção €48 million for abuse of dominant position.

In the note, Competition Authority wrote that, between 2009 and 2013, "EDP Produção manipulated its offer of the tele-regulation service or secondary regulation band, limiting the offer of capacity of its plants under the CMEC [Maintenance Costs of Contractual Equilibrium] regime to offer it through its plants under the market regime, in order to be doubly benefited, to the detriment of consumers".

The Competition Authority also explained that the abuse of a dominant position occurred "in the secondary regulation band market in mainland Portugal for five years".

According to the Competition Authority, EDP Produção "was able, simultaneously, to obtain higher public compensation paid under the CMEC regime and benefit from higher revenues in the market through its non-CMEC plants".

The mechanism burdened consumers "in two ways", that is, "on the one hand, the price of energy rose as a result of the increase in the secondary regulation band", and, on the other hand, "it also increased the share of the Costs of General Economic Interest (CIEG), which finances the compensations under the CMEC regime", he stated.

In the statement sent to the newsrooms on Thursday, EDP said that, "throughout this process, - which the Competition Authority only started in 2016, despite becoming aware of the alleged facts in 2013 and that EDP Produção started its autonomous participation in this market in 2008 following the rule created by the sector regulator - EDP Produção always provided full cooperation to the Competition Authority, in order to clarify all its doubts".

"In particular, EDP Produção showed, based on facts, legal explanations and independent economic reports, that the behaviour that the Competition Authority suggests should have been adopted would have caused it significant financial losses, which would be unacceptable and would violate the duties of diligent management, thus not constituting any violation of competition rules", he adds.

EDP and EDP Produção are now analysing the decision and respective grounds and say that they will resort to the legal means at their disposal to safeguard their rights, namely by filing an appeal with the Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court.