Office confirmed CZK 55 million fine for building savings companies

20 Apr 2007

Mr. Martin Pecina, Chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition (UOHS), has confirmed a CZK 55 million fine imposed on six building savings societies for an illegal exchange of information.

„The verdict which was preceded by a three-year decision-making process and a repeated reduction of the original fine of CZK 484 million has taken effect,“ Pecina said.

Ceskomoravska stavebni sporitelna, Stavebni sporitelna CS, Modra pyramida, Raiffeisen, Hypo and Wuestenrot agreed on an illegal exchange of information in 1997 for which they got a CZK 484 million fine from UOHS. There were also further shortcomings. Mr. Pecina said it was one of the first verdicts in the Czech Republic which saw the illegal exchange of information as behaviour harming competition. The building societies filed an appeal against the decision. In the new first-instance proceedings, UOHS failed to prove suspicion of abuse of the joint dominant position or concerted action on setting fees for services to clients. The fine was lowered to CZK 201 million, but the building societies appealed again, and in the third first-instance proceedings the sanction was cut to CZK 55 million.

External Relations Department