• An accidental meeting of the managers of competing companies marked the beginning of a collusion that lasted several years.
• Dekra Certification and Istituto Italiano del Marchio di Qualita - enterprises that issue ISO certificates - were fixing prices and dividing the market.
• Thanks to the leniency programme, one of the participants of the agreement has avoided any sanctions, and a penalty reduced by half has been imposed on the other.

Dekra Certification (Dekra) and Istituto Italiano del Marchio di Qualita (IMQ) are offering, inter alia, management system certifications services. They act in the capacity of independent, duly authorized entities providing written statements confirming that a given product, process or service conforms to the specific standards or to the applicable legal regulations.

- The entrepreneurs had concluded a competition-restricting agreement. They were fixing the prices for management system certification services, and divided the customer base between them. The unlawful practices prevailed over the period of four and a half years. Information about the collusion was gathered while searching, together with the Police, the companies’ premises in Kraków and Wrocław, and also as a result of cooperation with the entrepreneurs under the leniency programme – says Marek Niechciał, the President of UOKiK.

The leniency programme allows the financial penalties that are imposed upon an entrepreneur to be waved or reduced, should such an entrepreneur decide to cooperate with UOKiK. Both undertakings decided, in the course of the investigation, to cooperate with the President of UOKiK and requested that their financial penalties be waved or reduced. Both applications were filed within the period of only 6 days.

The agreement was concerned, inter alia, with the following certificates: ISO 9001 (Quality Management System), ISO 14001 (Environmental Management System),
OHSAS 18001/PN-N 18001 (Occupational Health and Safety Management System ), ISO 27001 (Information Security Management System).

Term of the agreement

The collusion lasted between 2009 and 2014. It all started with an accidental meeting of Dekra and IMQ managers that took place at one of the city squares in Kraków. During the conversation, the managers expressed their willingness to conclude the agreement and made initial arrangements concerning its future shape. Detailed adjustments were then made during subsequent meetings, telephone conversations and while exchanging e-mails.

Collusion scheme

Institutions, organizations or local governments that intended to purchase the certification service usually submitted a request for proposals to several entrepreneurs. They often approached companies that they intended to establish or continue cooperation with, and requested that another certifying body be identified that could also be asked to submit its bid. Dekra and IMQ agreed that they would recommend each other to those customers whom one of the companies was willing to acquire or maintain. They also agreed that the other bid (referred to, under the collusion agreement, as a “counter bid”) would be higher. For example, if an RFQ was received by Dekra, the company recommended IMQ, and the entrepreneurs were jointly deciding about the price charged by the latter, with the said price exceeding the one proposed by Dekra. The same mechanism was relied upon in situations in which IMQ was requested to recommend another entity. The Authority has documented 125 cases of practical implementation of the agreement. In 57 instances it was IMQ that requested a counter bid to be submitted, while Dekra did the same on 68 occasions.

The entrepreneurs have also divided the customer base between them. First and foremost, they informed each other about customers that should receive a higher counter bid from the other entrepreneur. In some cases they were agreeing, in the first place, which entities the services would be sold to, and only then were they exchanging information about the expected prices that were to facilitate the acquisition of new business partners.

As a result of those efforts, entities seeking a certification service were provided with offers that were less advantageous than those available under competitive conditions. They could be also convinced, erroneously, that the bid provided were the best ones available.

Decision

The Authority has imposed a financial penalty of over PLN 461,000 upon Istituto Italiano del Marchio di Qualita. (PLN 461,590.25). The penalty was reduced by half due to the fact that the company decided to take advantage, partially, of the leniency programme. IMQ submitted its application 6 days after a similar document was received from Dekra. Dekra Certification has avoided any sanctions due to its cooperation under the leniency programme.

Both companies were able to take advantage of the leniency programme as none of them could be clearly identified as the initiator of the agreement. Both were also fully cooperating with the anti-monopoly authority. They supplied valuable information that has contributed to proving the existence of the collusion scheme - they described the reasons behind and the objectives of the agreement, the manner in which it operated, the meeting places, information exchange channels and the wording of e-mail correspondence exchanged. The decision is not final and may be appealed against to court.

If you are aware of any illicit agreements, please report them to UOKiK. The Authority launched, in April of last year, a program intended to facilitate the acquisition of anonymous information from whistleblowers. UOKiK may be contacted, anonymously, by calling 22 55 60 500 or by sending an e-mail to [SCODE]c3lnbmFsaXN0YUB1b2tpay5nb3YucGw=[ECODE]. Additional information about our whistleblower program may be found on a new website at konkurencja.uokik.gov.pl. 

Additional information for the media:

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

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