• President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny initiated proceedings concerning the imposition of a penalty on Dahua Technology Poland.
• The company's actions might have obstructed the search conducted as part of the investigation.

Agreements restricting competition are harmful not only to other companies operating in the market, but also to consumers – they may, for example, result in higher prices for products covered by such an agreement. It is extremely difficult to obtain evidence of prohibited arrangements since, as a rule, they do not take the form of official agreements. For this reason, the legislator has provided the President of UOKiK with the possibility of conducting, with the court's approval, an unannounced search at the premises of entities suspected of keeping evidence of a violation of competition law. When starting a search, it is important to keep the element of surprise to prevent employees of the company concerned from erasing or destroying traces of illegal practices. Obstruction or prevention – even unintentional – of the conduct of a search is punishable by a high financial sanction with a maximum equivalent to EUR 50 million.

The search at the headquarters of Dahua Technology Poland took place in September 2021 and was related to the investigation into the unauthorised pricing of electronic monitoring equipment. In the context of the search, it is important to prevent information on the commencement of the search from being communicated to persons not participating in its initiation until the end of the preliminary stage (consisting in, among other things, the delivery of documents authorising the search and explaining its purpose and scope by the searchers). Therefore, when taking the first formal steps of the search at Dahua Technology Poland, the UOKiK's personnel asked the attending representatives of the company not to inform other employees of the start of the UOKiK's activities yet. Despite this fact, during the initial stage of the search and before securing Dahua Technology Poland's resources, one of the company managers sent a message to his colleagues via a mobile instant messaging app informing them of the search.

"The element of surprise is crucial for obtaining relevant material on prohibited business agreements. It might have been eliminated due to the behaviour of one of the managers of Dahua Technology Poland, who informed others about the beginning of the search at the initial stage of UOKiK's activities. This could have led to the cover-up of material evidence, which is why I have initiated proceedings to impose a financial penalty on the company," stated the President of UOKiK, Tomasz Chróstny.

We would like to remind you that the Office also runs a programme of acquiring information from anonymous whistleblowers. Visit https://konkurencja.uokik.gov.pl/sygnalista/ and fill in a simple form. The European system we use guarantees full anonymity, also towards the Office.

Additional information for the media:

UOKiK Press Office
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warszawa, Poland
Phone +48 695 902 088, +48 22 55 60 246
E-mail: biuroprasowe@uokik.gov.pl
Twitter: @UOKiKgovPL