COMPETITION COUNCIL‘S INVESTIGATION ENCOURAGED ASSOCIATION LINAVA TO UNIFY PRICES FOR TIR CARNETS

The Competition Council (the KT) terminated the investigation into the actions by the Lithuanian National Road Carriers Association LINAVA (the Association). Allegedly, the Associations had breached Article 7 of the Law on Competition and Article 102 of TFEU.

On 11 September 2012, the KT opened an investigation having suspected that the Association, being the only association authorised to issue TIR Carnets, abused its dominant position by charging excessive prices of TIR Carnets from 8 June 2011 and applying different prices of TIR Carnets sold to the members and non-members of the Association.

„The KT completed an important investigation into the suspected abuse of dominance. The collaboration between the KT and business brought real benefits to consumers: during the investigation conducted by KT the Association made and fulfilled the commitment to unify the prices for TIR Carnets sold to the members as well as non-members of the Association.“ – says Elonas Šatas, the Deputy Chairman of the KT.

In the course of the investigation the Association reduced the prices of TIR Carnets several times. Since 1 September 2013 the Association had been applying lower prices in comparison to the prices subject to the KT’s examination. Having regard to the aforementioned, the KT’s experts terminated the investigation concerning possibly excessive prices of TIR Carnets.

From 1 April 2014, the Association LINAVA unified the prices of TIR carnets sold to the members and non-members of the Association and thus eliminated the possible infringement of Article 7 of the Law on Competition and Article 102 of TFEU.