Competition Council: artificial price increases may violate competition law

The national competition regulator warns companies and informs consumers that any agreement or public position that may lead to the intentional increase or alignment of prices represents a violation of the law and involves significant sanctions.

The Competition Council draws attention, through a press release sent on Monday, in the context of the approaching Easter holidays, that each company must independently establish its commercial policy, and the artificial increase in prices, as well as the anticipation of a certain price that should be practiced, may fall under the provisions of the Competition Law.

“We are carefully monitoring the market so that some companies do not take advantage of this difficult international economic context and artificially increase prices. Statements by which representatives of some companies announce their intentions to increase prices for the products they sell can lead to the coordination of competitors’ behavior and an artificial increase in prices on the market. These types of actions are sanctioned from the perspective of national and European competition rules, because they distort competition and harm consumers,” says Bogdan Chiriţoiu, president of the Competition Council.

Thus, the competition authority also emphasizes the fact that an association can be held liable for violating competition rules when its decisions, recommendations or any other activity it undertakes influences the behavior of companies, affecting competition between them.

What are the fines

Thus, the Competition Council recommends that companies avoid any practices that could violate competition law and to address the institution regarding the compatibility of their initiatives with the legislation in the field.

The competition law prohibits any agreements between companies and concerted practices that prevent, restrict or distort competition on the Romanian market.

If the competition inspectors find a violation of the law, companies may be fined a percentage of their turnover, which can go up to 10% according to the law, which is calculated according to mitigating or aggravating circumstances, or, at the opposite pole according to the recognition of irregularities, which allows for more leniency.

The decisions of the Competition Council are enforceable, and the fines applied represent revenues to the state budget. The National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) implements the decision to sanction the competition authority and executes the fines.

The Competition Council recommends that consumers use the Price Monitor application to find out what prices are charged by the main retailers. The application is available both as a web application and as a mobile application (IOS and Android), which can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play and displays food prices from major retail chains, offering multiple search, sorting and data filtering facilities.