The Office finished its fourth settlement case

15 Jan 2010

Office for the Protection of Competition imposed by its decision of 23 December 2009 a fine amounting to 5 million CZK on the company Karlovarské minerální vody a.s. (KMV).

The company in question and its subsidiary HBSW concluded prohibited agreements on export prohibition. Those agreements could have led to the distortion of competition in the markets of carbonated and non-carbonated beverages.

KMV and HBSW concluded prohibited agreements with their distributors in the Czech Republic and abroad (especially in Slovakia) from 1 February 1999 till December 2008. Investigation of the Office proved that those agreements were fulfilled by the distributors. However the party to the proceedings didn’t pursue the control of fulfillment of those agreements in any way.

The company KMV cooperated with the Office effectively during the course of the administrative proceedings and contributed to detection and demonstration of the anticompetitive behavior. KMV abandoned implementation of agreements containing problematic provisions already during the investigation and offered its customers to amend this agreement with provisions previously approved by the Office. The case was closed through the so-called settlement procedure, which is an effective tool for speeding up the proceedings in less significant violations of the competition law. It was the fourth case concluded by the settlement so far for the Office (Kofola, Albatros and RWE Transgas cases). The KMV Company had its fine cut by 50 per cent due to its effective cooperation.

External Relations Department
10/006/HS001