The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection will take under scrutiny the concentration of groups operating in food sector - Auchan and Real. It is already the third time undertakings have addressed the European Commission to refer the case to the Polish antitrust authority

The European Commission and the national competition authorities are vested with the power to examine the market effects of mergers and acquisitions. The community dimension of a given transaction is the basic condition determining whether the application is considered by the European Commission. In principle, the European Commission examines transactions whose total global turnover of all participants amounts to a minimum of EUR 2.5 billion. On the other hand, the President of UOKiK has the capacity to deal with concentration cases which affect or might have effects in the territory of the Republic of Poland and are not of community dimension at the same time.

However, participants to the transaction which has a community dimension can request the EC to have the effects of the transaction considered by the member state – if it may significantly affect competition of a given state. In such case, the Commission can refer the case to the national antimonopoly authority, which in turn, may agree to assess the effects of a particular transaction.

This was the case of concentration concerning the acquisition of companies belonging to the Real Polska group by Auchan, which the European Commission referred to the Polish antitrust authority for consideration.

The Auchan group operates in retail trade sector of consumption goods of everyday use, traded via the network of hyper- and supermarkets. Its shops are available in 11 countries, including France, Hungary, Russia and China. In Poland the Auchan group runs a chain of supermakets under the brand “Elea” and hypermarkets “Auchan”.

Real is a part of Metro Group, the international trading consortium, operating in 30 countries of Europe and Eastern Asia. In Poland, the Metro Group has established five distribution networks, namely: Real, Makro Cash&Carry, Media Markt, Saturn and Praktiker. The Real chainstore operates in retail trading of everyday use consumption goods, with an emphasis on foodstuffs purchased via the network of hypermarkets.   

Taking into account that intended effects of this transaction will affect Poland and Romania, the case was referred to the Polish and Romanian antitrust authorities. The European Commission took the stance that the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has a significant experience in assessment of relevant markets within food sector, which has been reflected in decisions issued to date in this respect. UOKiK agreed to consider the case.

The President of UOKiK will institute the antimonopoly proceedings upon receiving application in this case.

It is already the third time an undertaking has applied for taking over the transaction by the Polish antimonopoly authority. First time it was ITI who benefited from such possibility; the second - PKN Orlen. In both cases, UOKiK agreed to the transactions under scrutiny.  

More information on the rules for merging undertakings can be found in specially drawn up materials. Furthermore, information on all antimonopoly proceedings conducted by the Office in concentration cases is available on UOKiK’s website.

Additional information for the media:
Małgorzata Cieloch, Spokesperson for UOKiK
Department of International Relations and Communication
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warszawa
Tel.: +48 22 827 28 92, 55 60 106, 55 60 430
Fax: +48 22 826 11 86
E-mail: [SCODE]bWFsZ29yemF0YS5jaWVsb2NoQHVva2lrLmdvdi5wbA==[ECODE]