Doing business in Spain

Insights on the Spanish economy, culture and business etiquete,

CNMC TARGETS FIVE OVER IBERIAN BLACKOUT

Cani Fernández, president of Spain's competition and energy regulator CNMC, has opened approximately 20 sanctioning proceedings against Red Eléctrica, Iberdrola, Endesa, Naturgy, and Repsol for their roles in the 28 April 2025 blackout that cut power to 47 million people across Spain and Portugal. Red Eléctrica, Spain's sole transmission system operator, faces the heaviest charge. The CNMC is investigating a "very serious" infraction under Article 64.25 of the Ley del Sector

4 hours ago2 min read

HITHIUM PUTS €400M INTO NAVARRE BESS

Navarre's Industry Minister Mikel Irujo signed an investment commitment with Chinese battery storage manufacturer Hithium in Beijing on 16 April, closing a two-year courtship that included seven visits by Chinese representatives to the region and four Navarrese delegations to China. The deal commits Hithium to build what would be Europe's first dedicated battery energy storage systems gigafactory in Navarre for approximately €400 million, creating 700 direct jobs in its first

23 hours ago2 min read

MESSI BUYS UE CORNELLÀ OUTRIGHT

Lionel Messi has acquired 100 percent ownership of UE Cornellà, a third-division Spanish football club based in Cornellà de Llobregat, near Barcelona. The eight-time Ballon d'Or winner and Inter Miami captain now holds full control over the club's management, finances, and strategic direction. UE Cornellà sit third in their group, five points behind leaders CE Manresa, with a playoff spot already secured and promotion to Spain's second tier in play. No purchase price or selle

1 day ago1 min read

EURONET BUYS PAYNOPAIN FOR SPAIN PUSH

Jordi Nebot Carda, founder and CEO of PaynoPain, has signed a definitive agreement to sell the Spanish fintech to Euronet Worldwide (NASDAQ: EEFT), the operator of one of the world's largest independent ATM networks. Deal terms were not disclosed. Closing is expected in Q3 2026, subject to regulatory approvals. What Euronet is buying is not just a payments company. PaynoPain holds a payment service provider licence authorised by the Bank of Spain, giving Euronet a regulatory

2 days ago1 min read

FRISBY SPAIN LAUNCHES ON A LAWSUIT

Frisby España SL will open dark kitchens in Madrid and Barcelona on 1 July 2026, selling fried chicken under a brand it won from the Colombian original in court. This is not a franchise. Frisby Spain operates as a completely independent entity from the Colombian chain founded by Alfredo Hoyos Mazuera and Liliana Restrepo, who built the brand into a national institution over five decades. In March 2026, a Spanish court confirmed Frisby Spain's exclusive right to the name and l

2 days ago1 min read

MICA TURNS IBERIA INTO A TOLLGATE

António Henriques, Chief Executive Officer of Bison Bank in Lisbon, described the absorption of his crypto subsidiary into the bank's main structure as a natural move driven by MiCA, and that framing reveals something precise about what the regulation actually does to market structure. MiCA does not simply create rules. It creates a cost floor that only certain kinds of firms can clear. In Spain, the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores closed the Bank of Spain's legacy r

2 days ago2 min read

THREE CITIES, THREE DEAL CULTURES

CaixaBank's decision to move its registered office from Barcelona to Valencia in October 2017 was, on paper, a legal redomiciliation. In practice, it fractured commercial relationships built over a century of Catalan institutional identity, with business partners describing anger sufficient to redirect supplier contracts. Sergio de Miguel Jessel, Market Head of Iberia at Julius Baer, has described Madrid as attracting "an unprecedented surge in investments," driven by post-Br

4 days ago2 min read

DORA DRIVES IBERIAN VENDOR SPEND

Rodrigo Díaz-Jares Amorós, Associate in Financial Regulation at DLA Piper Spain, documented in October 2025 that while DORA harmonises substantive obligations across the European Union, it delegates penalty regimes to Member States, producing a divergence that has created two materially different enforcement environments on the Iberian Peninsula within the same regulation. Portugal moved first. Law No. 73/2025, passed on 23 December 2025, activated an autonomous sanctions reg

4 days ago2 min read

COLD OUTREACH FAILS IN PORTUGAL

Fabio Salvador, Head of Sales for Spain and Portugal at Partoo, built Portugal into the company's fourth-largest market without a single mass cold email campaign, and the method he used explains why every foreign vendor attempting volume-based outbound in Portugal is solving the wrong problem. Portugal's business population is 99.9% small and medium-sized enterprises, and between 70% and 80% of those are family-owned. The decision-maker in those firms is not a procurement com

Apr 92 min read

REGULATION DRIVES BUYING CYCLES

Leif Ferreira, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Bit2Me, spent 2,5 million euros and 3.000 hours securing his company's licence under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation before a single competitor had done the same in Spain. That investment matters to this argument because it quantifies what a regulatory deadline costs an operator who treats compliance as a strategic act rather than an administrative burden. The pattern across Iberia is observable. Financial insti

Apr 72 min read

DORA TURNS GAPS INTO CONTRACTS

Marc Andries, the Joint Oversight Director appointed by the European Supervisory Authorities to lead DORA's third-party oversight framework, designated 19 critical ICT third-party providers on 18 November 2025, placing every Iberian financial institution contracting with AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud, Oracle, or SAP under direct pan-European scrutiny. That designation is not a warning. It is an audit trigger. The audit trigger arrived on top of an already unstable foundation.

Apr 52 min read