THE COMPANY FINED FOR FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THE REQUEST TO PROVIDE INFORMATION REQUIRED TO THE INVESTIGATION CARRIED OUT BY THE COMPETITION COUNCIL

The Competition Council acknowledged that UAB “Plungės duona” by failure to comply with the request of the authorized officers of the Competition Council to provide relevant information to an ongoing investigation had infringed the requirements of the Law on Competition. For the infringement the company was fined of LTL 86,400.

Officers of the Competition Council are conducting the investigation regarding possible prohibited agreement between companies engaged in food production and sales activities. This investigation is carried out also in respect of UAB “Plungės duona” on a basis for suspecting that the company may participate in anticompetitive agreements with other companies. During the investigation UAB “Plungės duona” has repeatedly been asked to provide information necessary to the investigation. However, the information has not been timely provided, and the answers have been received only having opened an investigation regarding the company’s non-compliance with requests of the officers of the Competition Council.

Having conducted the investigation, the Competition Council made a conclusion that UAB “Plungės duona” had infringed the requirements of the Law on Competition providing an obligation for companies to provide information required to the investigations carried out by the Competition Council. For failure to provide the required information for investigation or examination of concentration, and also in case of provision of incorrect or incomplete information, the Law on Competition provides for a possibility to impose fines.

This is the first case in the Competition Council’s practice when the fine has been imposed for failure to provide the information necessary for investigation. It should be noted that the effectiveness of investigations and the benefit to consumers directly depend on the proper execution of the requests of the officers of the Competition Council, and these requests are obligatory to all companies. Therefore, in order to ensure the integrity of investigations carried out under the Law on Competition and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Competition Council is committed to rigorous evaluation of cases regarding failure to provide information.

Such an infringement as it was committed by UAB “Plungės duona” is a serious violation of a procedural nature of the requirements of the Law on Competition, as due to the non-provided information by one company the investigation becomes more difficult or even impossible in comparison to those companies, which comply with the requests of the authorized officers of the Competition Council.