Type of refusal
Non-delivery with a counterparty in Portugal
Non-delivery with a counterparty in Portugal
Non-delivery means payment went out but the shares, tokens, property title, or asset promised never arrived. The counterparty in Portugal may be a company, a fund vehicle, or an individual acting through one. What is establishable now is that entity's legal form and current status, not the sequence of steps to press a claim inside Portugal. General mechanics of this type of refusal are set out at non-delivery cases.
Who is actually on the other side
The name on a contract is not proof of who actually holds the asset. In Portugal the counterparty is typically a company (sociedade), sometimes a fund structure, occasionally a person who signed personally. A public commercial registry search shows whether the entity is still active, who its directors are, and whether its registered address or capital changed since the deal was made. It also shows whether the entity has been dissolved or entered insolvency, which changes who a claim would actually run against. If the entity has vanished and those behind it moved the funds elsewhere, the question stops being purely commercial; see when non-delivery becomes a criminal matter. What applies to Portugal more broadly is set out at Portugal as a jurisdiction.
What to secure before the counterparty reacts
Before anything else, the investor's own record needs to be complete. Keep every payment confirmation, the signed agreement, and any message where the counterparty acknowledged the obligation or promised delivery by a date. Preserve messaging threads that could later be deleted. Identify every other person who invested through the same vehicle or introducer; non-delivery rarely affects one investor alone, and how several claims connect matters, see one claim, several investors. Do not signal to the counterparty that formal steps are being prepared before this evidence is secured. What a claim for non-delivery covers, and what it does not, is described at refund and delivery claims.
Where a judgment would have to be enforced
A judgment obtained outside Portugal does not automatically run there. Within the EU, a judgment from another member state is recognised without a separate exequatur procedure. Outside that framework, Portugal joined the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention, effective 1 September 2023, which affects which foreign judgments qualify. Documents relied on may need an apostille; Portugal has applied the Apostille Convention since 1969, with a reservation recorded against it. Enforcement into Portugal is covered at enforcement into Portugal; the reverse route is separate, see enforcement from Portugal to the UK. The sequence of filings inside Portugal is not set out here; it depends on the case materials, not on this page. This firm does not work on a success-fee-only basis; its registration can be checked via how to verify a law firm.