• The President of UOKiK has issued a decision on collusion restricting competition in the truck market.
• He imposed more than PLN 238 million on Iveco Poland and 10 truck distributors. Fines totalling more than PLN 2.5 million were also given to 10 managers.
• The entrepreneurs shared the market in an unauthorised manner and also fixed the prices of the vehicles they sold.
• The fines would have been higher but four entrepreneurs and four managers took advantage of the leniency programme.

– Illegal agreements by businesses always mean losses for the recipients of their products or services, including consumers. Market sharing means that buyers cannot take advantage of the competitive offerings of other entities. Price collusion, on the other hand, is the inability to buy products more cheaply than at predetermined prices. This was the case with collusion in the truck market - says the President of UOKiK, Tomasz Chróstny.

Market sharing

The decision issued relates to collusion between truck importer Iveco Poland and distributors of Iveco vehicles. The collusion lasted nearly 10 years, from at least June 2009 to May 2019. The entrepreneurs primarily shared the market among themselves. The agreement was that Iveco Poland and the distributors agreed on areas where the local distributor had priority for customer service (sometimes referred to as “regionalisation”). If a potential buyer from elsewhere requested a quotation, the seller directed them to a competing distributor or presented them with an unfavourable offer, thus discouraging them from using a distributor other than the one resulting from the market collusion. In addition to the areas designated to dealers, the importer also had its own territory where at one time it granted itself exclusive rights to sell certain types of trucks.

Iveco Poland maintained market sharing through the use of rebates and periodic bonuses for sales performance. It pressured dealers to get them to give up selling vehicles to customers in other areas. It also disciplined those who did not comply with the arrangements, for instance by taking away their discounts. Dealers were also actively involved in the collusion. Some of them were passing information about potential buyers to each other, as well as agreeing among themselves which dealer would have the right to make an offer to a particular customer to purchase a vehicle. In such cases, other dealers were warned not to contact this customer or make competing offers. They also made sure that their trading partners (so-called sub-dealers) also sold trucks only in the territory entrusted to them.

Pricing arrangements

Market sharing was supported by pricing arrangements. Entrepreneurs exchanged information on prices included in offers to customers. This was primarily aimed at discouraging potential buyers from buying trucks from a different dealer than the one resulting from the arrangement and avoiding price competition between dealers for individual customers.

Fines

For participating in an agreement restricting competition, the President of UOKiK, Tomasz Chróstny, imposed fines totalling more than PLN 238 million, of which more than PLN 155 million was imposed on Iveco Poland. The other punished entrepreneurs were: entrepreneurs from the DBK Group (DBK from Olsztyn, CTC from Ruda Śląska, On Road Truck Services from Poznań), Przedsiębiorstwo Usługowo-Handlowe Exmot from Bydgoszcz, Siltruck from Skoczów, Trans-Poz in bankruptcy from Swadzim, Uni-Truck from Zielona Góra, STC from Rzeszów, ADF Auto from Wrocław, and Truck Nord Center from Sierpc. In addition, fines totalling more than PLN 2.5 million were also given to 10 individuals - managers personally responsible for allowing violations of competition law by the entities they managed. These include managers from Iveco Poland, DBK, CTC, Exmot, Siltruck and Uni-Truck.

The exact amounts of fines imposed on entrepreneurs:

Iveco Poland - PLN 155,561,291.58
Uni-Truck - PLN 46,811,461.41 
CTC - PLN 13,785,927.31 
Siltruck - PLN 5,971,959.54 
PUH Exmot- PLN 5,328,604.34 
DBK - PLN 4,531,844.71 
On Road Truck Services - PLN 3,705,986.73 
ADF Auto - PLN 1,126,634.02 
STC - PLN 758,933.97 
Trans-Poz in bankruptcy - PLN 605,383.81 
Truck Nord Center - PLN 410,916.33

The exact amounts of fines imposed on managers:

Daniel Wolszczak (Iveco Poland) - PLN 490,000 
Krzysztof Biesek (PUH Exmot) - PLN 360,000 
Marian Czapka (Siltruck) - PLN 315,000 
Andrzej Korcik (Uni-Truck) - PLN 315,000 
Tomasz Urbanowicz (CTC) - PLN 280,000
Dariusz Mazanek (Uni-Truck) - PLN 280,000 
Ireneusz Sobieski (DBK) - PLN 183,750 
Michał Stankowiak (Uni-Truck)- PLN 112,000
Daniel Kubieniec (CTC) - PLN 98,000 
Jacek Chodasewicz (CTC) - PLN 77,000

In the course of the proceedings, four entrepreneurs benefited from the leniency programme (three companies in the DBK Group, that is, DBK, CTC and On Road Truck Services, as well as Trans-Poz). It allows businesses that provide substantial evidence of collusion to reduce or, in some cases, even avoid fines. DBK was the first company to apply to UOKiK. However, it did so after the initiation of the proceedings, hence it could not count on a complete waiver of the monetary sanction. Still, it provided information and evidence relevant to the outcome of the case. Therefore, the President of UOKiK reduced by 50 per cent the fine imposed on this entrepreneur and its subsidiaries: CTC and On Road Truck Services. Trans-Poz was the second company to apply for leniency. The entrepreneur obtained a 20 per cent reduction in the fine. The leniency programme also benefited four managers from the DBK Group who were charged by the President of UOKiK of allowing the companies they managed to violate competition law. They obtained a reduction in their fines to the same extent as the entrepreneurs.

Have you suffered a loss? You can claim compensation

– I would like to remind you that whoever has suffered damage as a result of a violation of competition law may file a lawsuit in civil court against any of the entities that has violated the law. This can be done, for example, by a contractor of an entrepreneur who has violated competition law. When filing a claim, it is necessary to indicate the amount of compensation sought. In determining the amount due, consideration should be given to the counterfactual scenario, i.e. what the market situation would have been like in the absence of the violation. As a rule, the loss will be the excess price paid as a result of the anti-competitive practices - says Tomasz Chróstny, the President of UOKiK.

Obtaining compensation is made possible by the Act on Claims for Damages Caused by Violation of Competition Law (so-called private enforcement) which came into force in 2017. The President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has prepared and published a special study in which he takes a closer look at the regulations on these issues.

Notify UOKiK

Entrepreneurs and managers involved in anti-competitive collusion are reminded that they can avoid severe fines through the leniency programme. Please call the special phone number for details: 22 55 60 555. The Office’s lawyers will answer all of your questions related to the leniency programme - also those asked anonymously.

The Office also offers a programme allowing it to acquire information from anonymous whistle-blowers. Visit https://uokik.whiblo.pl/ and fill out a simple form. The pan-European system we rely on guarantees full anonymity, also towards the Office’s staff.