UOKiK has issued a resolution to extend by four months its investigation of Eurocash’s acquisition of Polish Spirits Distribution.

At the end of December, Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) received a concentration application seeking approval for Eurocash to acquire Polish Spirits Distribution, whose operations mainly involve selling alcoholic beverages through seven specialised wholesalers. Eurocash heads a capital group that primarily holds wholesale distributors of tobacco products, frozen foods, agricultural chemicals, and retailers of daily use consumer products and cosmetics.  

The data Eurocash provided showed that the concentration could impact several local wholesale alcoholic beverage markets. UOKiK elected to extend the proceeding by four months, as market research will be essential in verifying the information the company provided, particularly as concerns the market share its holdings command. Moreover, no reliable, publicly available information or data exist on specialized wholesalers operating on local alcoholic beverage sales markets.

In force since last January, Poland’s amended Competition and Consumer Protection Act lays out a two-stage proceedings model for concentration cases. While UOKiK issues a decision in the majority of cases in the first, one-month stage, it may extend a proceeding by four months to issue a decision in cases that are particularly complicated, that require additional market research to be conducted, or that concern cases covering a concentration that poses a justifiable likelihood of competition being significantly limited.

The resolution to extend a proceeding does not have any bearing on UOKiK’s ultimate decision in a case.

Additional information for the media:

Press Office, UOKiK
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warsaw
Phone.: +48 22 827 28 92, +48 22 55 60 314, +48 22 55 60 430
E-mail: [SCODE]Yml1cm9wcmFzb3dlQHVva2lrLmdvdi5wbA==[ECODE]

Twitter: @UOKiKgovPL