The Italian Competition Authority opened a cartel investigation in the car rental sector

Following an anonymous complaint, on 22 July 2015 the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 101 TFEU investigation against 8 car rental companies and a trade association regrouping them, Aniasa, in the Case I791. The market concerned is the market for the long term rental of  cars. The complainant, that was a user of car rental services, reported a certain degree of alignment in the commercial policies of the parties as for the prices and the other relevant competition factors, though previously the parties used to compete more agressively in the market. The complainant  also reported that the parties exchanged sensitive information organized in excel files through their trade  association Aniasa. 
Considering the facts reported by the anonymous complainant and the evidence collected in some dawn raids, the ICA feared that the parties may had breached competition exchanging sensitive information and coordinating their commercial policies. Hereby, the ICA launched an investigation into these allegedly anti-competitive practices.

Comments

rentacarotopeni85 said…
Sectorul de rent a car este intr-o continua dezvoltare in tara noastra. In capitala Romaniei firmele de aici care ofera rent a car Bucuresti au niste autorizatii speciale. Acestea se emit de catre primarie si ofera un ecuson valabil pentru cei care au nevoie de inchirieri auto www.rent-a-car-otopeni.ro
December 8, 2016 at 3:42 AM
Unknown said…
Hello. Great article.
July 24, 2020 at 5:21 AM
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