The President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection imposed a total of over PLN 238 million on the company Iveco Poland and 10 distributors of trucks – the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection reported in a press release. As reported, the entrepreneurs divided the market in an unlawful manner and also fixed the prices of the vehicles sold.
Iveco Poland received more than PLN 155 million in penalties. Other punished entrepreneurs were: entrepreneurs from the DBK group (DBK from Olsztyn, CTC from Ruda Śląska, On Road Truck Services from Poznań), Przedsiębiorstwo Usługowo-Handlowe Exmot from Bydgoszcz, Siltruck from Skoczów, Trans-Poz in bankruptcy from Swadzim, Uni-Truck from Zielona Góra, STC from Rzeszów, ADF Auto from Wrocław and Truck Nord Center from Sierpc. Office of Competition and Consumer Protection entitled the announcement of the penalty “Cartel in the sale of Iveco trucks – decision of the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection”.
High penalties also for managers
Fines totaling over PLN 2.5 million were also imposed on 10 managers personally responsible for allowing the entities they managed to violate competition law. These are managers from: Iveco Poland, DBK, CTC, Exmot, Siltruck and Uni-Truck. The fines ranged from PLN 490,000 to PLN 77,000.
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection announced that the financial penalties would have been higher, but four entrepreneurs and four managers took advantage of the leniency programme.
“The decision issued concerns collusion between the importer of Iveco Poland trucks and distributors of Iveco vehicles. The collusion lasted for almost 10 years, at least from June 2009 to May 2019. The entrepreneurs, above all, they divided the market among themselves. The agreement was based on the fact that Iveco Poland and the distributors established areas in which the local distributor had priority in customer service (sometimes referred to as “regionalization”) – it was written.
“If a potential buyer from another location asked for an offer, the seller would direct him to a competing distributor or present him with an unfavourable offer, thus discouraging him from using the services of a distributor other than the one resulting from the concluded market collusion. In addition to the areas designated to dealers, the importer also had its own territory, where for a certain period it granted itself exclusivity for the sale of certain types of trucks,” it added.
There were supposed to be pressures
The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) reported that Iveco Poland maintained market division through the use of discounts and periodic bonuses for sales resultsy. It exerted pressure on dealers to persuade them to stop selling vehicles to customers from other areas. According to the UOKiK, dealers also actively participated in the collusion. Some of them passed on information about potential buyers, and also agreed among themselves which of them would have the right to make an offer to a given customer to buy a vehicle.
As reported, market division was supported by pricing arrangements.
– Prohibited agreements between entrepreneurs always mean losses for the recipients of their products or services, including consumers. Market division means that buyers cannot take advantage of competitive offers from other entities. In turn, price fixing means the inability to purchase products cheaper than at predetermined prices. This was the case with the collusion on the truck market – said the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, Tomasz Chróstny, quoted in the Office's press release.
We sent a request to Iveco Poland for a position paper. However, we did not receive a response at the time of publication.
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