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Poland: Antitrust fine for rail freight operator that issued illegal cargo contracts

By  |  January 17, 2016

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection in Poland has found that the country’s largest rail freight operator, PKP Cargo, abused its dominant position which resulted in limited competition on the rail freight market. As a result, the antitrust authority fined the company €3.3 million reduced partially because so much time had passed between the initiation of proceedings in 2006 and the conclusion of the case in 2015.

UOKiK established that in 2006 PKP Cargo introduced regulations allowing it to refuse to sign a special agreement with enterprises it saw as offering competition to its own logistics services.

The contracts which were offered extended attractive discounts to companies that did not compete directly with PKP Cargo, thus preventing competitors from expanding their own activity and gaining new customers, thus offering no threat to the dominant company. These illegal practices went on until 2007.

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