Fuel companies Fuel companies have yet to pay around €21m in fines slapped on them more than 10 years ago for having colluded to fix retail pump prices, it emerged on Monday.
Loukia Christodoulou, head of the Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC), told lawmakers that between October 2004 and December 2006 the agency carried out a probe into collusion between vendors.
The CPC found the implicated companies guilty, and imposed a cumulative €20.8m in administrative fines.
The fines are unpaid to this day.
The reason, Christodoulou said, is that the case has been tied up in the courts, after the companies challenged the CPC’s findings.
She clarified that the CPC itself does not collect the fines it imposes. Rather, once it issues a ruling and determines the monetary penalty, the CPC relays its decision to the attorney-general informing him that the fine must be paid within 30 days.
In 2019, the CPC imposed fines amounting to €658,000 for three separate cases involving unfair market practices.
The first case relates to the provision of water supply to consumers in the Kouklia community; the second regarded telecommunications firm MTN for overcharging customers; and the third involved the Cyprus Theatre Organisation.
Christodoulou was at the House finance committee reviewing the CPC’s budget for 2020. The budget provides for €2.09m in expenditures.
The post Ten years after price fixing fines, fuel companies still haven’t paid up appeared first on Cyprus Mail.
Read more → https://cyprus-mail.com/2019/11/05/ten-years-after-price-fixing-fines-fuel-companies-still-havent-paid-up/
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