COMPETITION COUNCIL CALLS FOR OPINIONS ON ASSOCIATION LINAVA COMMITMENTS CONCERNING PRICES OF TIR CARNETS

On 11 September 2012, the Competition Council (the Council) opened an investigation on the actions by the Lithuanian National Road Carriers Association LINAVA (Association). It was suspected that the Association infringed Article 7 of the Law on Competition and Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. From 8 June 2011, the Association, being the only undertaking that sells TIR carnets, increased prices and applied different prices for the TIR carnets sold to the members and the candidates to the members of the Association and, thus, possibly abused its dominant position.

Having evaluated all the collected data, the Council determined that the Association could have infringed Article 7 of the Law on Competition and Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union whereby discrimination or any other anti-competitive actions are prohibited.

With regard to the doubts raised by the Council and with the intention to eliminate the suspected infringement, the Association addressed the Council with a request to terminate the ongoing investigation and, as of 1 April 2014, obliged to unify the prices applied to the TIR carnets sold to the members and the candidates to the members of the Association.

The Council calls stakeholders to express their grounded opinions on the aforementioned obligation by the Association until March 6.

If, having regard to the opinions expressed by the stakeholders, the Council finds the proposed commitments to be acceptable and sufficient enough to eliminate the suspected infringement of competition law, the commitments by the Association will be confirmed and the investigation on the Association‘s actions will be terminated. It is important to note that in such case no infringement of competition law would be established however the undertaking would be legally obligated to fulfil its commitments.