In a statement released today, not mentioning when the actions took place, the authority said it had inspected 182 economic operators and initiated two criminal proceedings for price speculation and 14 for administrative offences.

Among the main infringements, ASAE highlighted “the failure to fulfil the duties of a distributor, the failure to provide the consumer, in a timely manner, with the pre-contractual information required and the failure to comply with the manufacturer's duties applicable to importers or distributors of personal protective equipment.”

The authority also said that the “medicine pills” were allegedly sold with the promise of a prevention of Covid-19 and did not have “any authorisation from the national medicine entity” or “any labelling in Portuguese that allowed to know which product” it was used for.

Over the last two years, ASAE says it has seized around 14 million masks in inspection actions.