On the waterfront

Following the receipt of a complaint, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an investigation into an alleged cartel affecting the market for shipping agency’ services (Case I733, Servizi di Agenzia Marittima). On the basis of the facts set out in the complaint, the ICA alleged that the parties had implemented the cartel in a number of phases.

First, through the meetings of a first professional association, Commissione Portuale di Assagenti, which was set up by shipping agencies operating in the port of Genoa, the parties agreed on the fees to charge for their services. The cartelized fees were the Manual Documentation Fees and the Open Documentation Fees. The parties recommended which fees charge on customers within the maximum and the minimum set by ministerial decrees.

Second, Assagenti was given the task to convince another professional association, Spediporto, which was set up by couriers and shippers active at the port of Genoa, to apply the recommended fees. Spediporto agreed to apply the recommended fees.

Third, Assagenti and Spediporto association committed to circulate within their members the recommended fees.

The ICA will investigate the alleged cartel under Article 102 TFEU. The cartel was carried out in the port of Genoa and the fees applied there are followed also in the other Italian ports. Therefore, the ICA concluded that the practice had a EU relevance. The ICA had to conclude the investigations by June 2011.

Apparently, the ICA has again found a cartel implemented by professional associations and a conspicuous number of undertakings, in this case 16 (see here for example). Assagenti and Spediporto seem to have played a relevant role in the cartel. The ICA had already penalized, quite leniently however, professional associations for similar conducts. Finally, as the parties had put in place a hard-core cartel, they should not rely on the commitments procedure to address the ICA competition concerns and close proceedings.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aspen: The Italian Competition Authority fines a generic manufacturer of drugs for excessive pricing

By the decision made on 29 September 2016 in Aspen [i] , the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has imposed a fine of more than EUR 5 million on the Aspen group (Aspen), a South African manufacturer of generic drugs. Aspen violated Article 102 TFEU by imposing excessive prices for the supply of the so-called ‘Cosmos drugs’. These drugs included Leukeran, Alkeran, Purinethol and Tioguanine, which included the active principles of chlorambucil, melphalan, mercaptopurine and tioguanine, respectively. All these drugs were used to treat cancer pathologies and included in a wider package of pharmaceutical products, whose marketing rights had been purchased by Aspen from the originator GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2009. Aspen had a dominant position in the relevant product markets for the commercialization of anti-cancer drugs manufactured using the active principles of alkeran, leukeran, purinethol and tioguanine. It had the only one market authorization for the sale of drugs and potential ...
Read more

Geographical allocation of turnover in aviation mergers: What the European Commission recently hold

The European Merger Control Regulation (ECMR) stipulates that only concentrations with a European dimension fall within the regulatory jurisdiction of the European Commission to review. A concentration is presumed to have such a dimension when it meets the financial threshold in Article 1 of the ECMR. To this end, it is necessary to calculate the turnover generated by the merging parties within the Community or in one or more member states. However, the geographical allocation of the turnover required by Article 1 for the purpose to establish the Commission’s jurisdiction can be a tricky issue in case of mergers between undertakings with a cross-border activity such airliners. In fact, the activities of airlines span several countries as they typically operate flights and sell tickets in many national markets. Recently, the Commission has dealt with the issue at length in the Ryanair/Aer Lingus case. It identified three possible methodologies for geographical allocation of turnover: -...
Read more

The European Commission unconditionally clears the Facebook/WhatsApp merger

By a Phase I decision the Commission unconditionally approved the Facebook $ 19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp ( Case No COMP/M.7217,Facebook/WhatsApp) . The Commission was required by the parties to review the transaction by means of a reasoned submission filed on the basis of Article 4(5) of the EU Merger Regulation. Indeed, the merger was not a concentration with EU dimension within the meaning of Article 1 EUMR falling within the Commission jurisdiction, since the EU turnover of WhatsApp in 2013 failed to met the financial thresholds in that provision. The Commission identified three relevant product markets affected by the concentration. It restrained the first relevant market, the market for consumer communication services, to the communication apps for smartphones, because WhatsApp was available only for this device. Following its approach in Microsoft/Skype (Case M.6281), upheld by the General Court in the case T-79/12, Cisco Systems and Messagenet v Commission, the Com...
Read more