EU: EC fines ARA €6 million for excluding competition

Austria requires producers of goods to take back packaging wastes from the products produced, but this task may be transferred to another company for a fee. ARA has been the dominant provider of these services for household packaging waste in Austria since at least 2008.

During its investigation, the EC found that the nationwide collection infrastructure, partly controlled and partly owned by ARA, could not be duplicated. Competitors who wanted to enter or expand within the market were dependent on this infrastructure and the investigation found that between March 2008 and April 2012 ARA refused to give access to this infrastructure to competitors.

The EC delivered a fine to the ARA based on the Commission’s  2006 guidelines on fees, but reduced the fine by 30% to €6,015,000 because of ARA’s cooperation in the investigation. During the course of the investigation, ARA proposed a structural remedy and has even divested parts of its household collection infrastructure.

Since 2008, Austria adopted a new waste law allowing new competition to enter the market.

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