Constitutional Court Rejects Montenegro’s Spinumviva Appeals Again
Portugal's Constitutional Court threw out two more appeals by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro over Spinumviva disclosures. What he sought to keep private.
Portugal’s Constitutional Court (Tribunal Constitucional, the country’s top court for constitutional questions) has rejected two appeals by Prime Minister Luís Montenegro that sought to keep parts of his asset declaration out of public view. The appeals concerned Spinumviva, the family company he founded and handed to his children in March last year.
The court’s plenary ruled on Nov. 3 in cases 975/25 and 743/26, the court confirmed to the Lusa news agency. The newspaper Observador first reported the decision. A person close to Montenegro told the weekly Expresso on Friday that he considers the matter closed and will not file further appeals.
What Montenegro wanted to keep private
The two appeals aimed to limit who could consult the prime minister’s single declaration of income and assets. According to CNN Portugal, he wanted to block publication of Spinumviva’s bank account details, the description of services the company provided and the tax records of its urban properties. Observador reported that the request also covered bank account balances.
The declarations are overseen by the Entidade para a Transparência (EpT, the body that checks income and asset filings by politicians and senior public officials). The EpT had ordered him to include information on Spinumviva’s activity in his filings, including its clients, its services and its bank accounts. Montenegro objected, citing privacy and the interests of third parties. RTP reported that the appeals relied on paragraphs 8 to 10 of article 17 of the declarations law, which let office holders oppose full or partial access to their filings on those grounds.
How the dispute unfolded
The disagreement with the EpT goes back to April 2025, when Montenegro opposed making Spinumviva’s client list public. He filed the first of the two appeals now rejected in August 2025.
A separate, earlier appeal was thrown out by the Constitutional Court in March this year because it came after the legal deadline, so the judges never looked at its merits. The court then also turned down his complaint against that ruling.
On May 5, Montenegro submitted a new declaration to the EpT naming 13 Spinumviva clients and the type of work done for each. That list became public and matched what he had disclosed in March and what Expresso had published in April 2025. He lodged the second appeal in May 2026, after that filing.
What the client list shows
The clients include Rádio Popular, Solverde, Cofina, Ferpinta, INETUM Portugal, Grupel, Sogenave and CLIP (Colégio Luso Internacional do Porto, a private school). For most of them, Spinumviva’s work involved personal data protection and compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD in Portuguese).
The company also did management consulting for Beetsteel and Portugalenses Transportes. For the Joaquim de Barros Rodrigues & Filhos group, a fuel retailer based in Braga, it worked on restructuring a family fuel business, including strategic planning and branding of service stations.
What this means for the prime minister
As with the earlier case, the court did not rule on whether a politician can legally keep such details private. Montenegro’s office said the judges decided on “formal and procedural” grounds rather than on the substance. It said it regretted that the correct reading of the law remains unsettled, arguing that the uncertainty affects citizens’ willingness to take part in political life.
His office added that, in his own case, all declarations have already been made and are public. The written rulings in both cases will be released only once they become final.
Sources: CNN Portugal, RTP Notícias, Observador
