Over 600 administrative proceedings were held, resulting in the imposition of financial penalties in the amount of over PLN 174 million - such are the effects of the activities of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection in the year 2004. Today the Office presents its activity report

During the last year UOKiK held 264 proceedings which were concluded with the issuance of 154 decisions finding the infringement of collective consumer interests. Certainly, most important ones were the cases concerning the actions of Telekomunikacja Polska (Polish Telecom). The first proceedings concerned the dialers - programmes that install themselves without the users’ knowledge while they are browsing certain web sites. In the second decision the Office recognized the irregularities committed by  TP during the launch of a new customer relation management system (the basis of which is the so called “Blue Line”) as unacceptable. Although the company did not appeal to the court, UOKiK was still receiving complaints regarding the system’s operations. They formed the ground for instituting proceedings controlling the performance of the Office’s decision by the operator. As a result of these proceedings penalties in the total amount of over 4.2 million zloty were imposed on TP in the year 2005.

In the year 2004 the President of the Office also exercised his right to state whether formats of contract do not infringe the rights of consumers as the weaker party of a contract.  In case of many types of services the consumer is not able to negotiate the content of a contract - his role is limited to accepting or rejecting it. Therefore, there is a risk that clauses may be imposed on the consumer, which are not always favourable. During the last year the Office carried out national inspections of formats of contract used inter alia by non-public higher education institutions, entrepreneurs performing sales via Internet, tour operators, car dealers and language schools. Generally, as a result of 881 proceedings 82 suits were brought before the court, and in consequence 143 clauses were entered into the register of abusive clauses. It should be emphasized that in 348 cases the entrepreneurs have voluntarily amended the questioned formats of contracts.

354 proceedings held by UOKiK in 2004 concerned competition restricting practices. Most of them (295 cases) referred to the abuse of dominant position on the market. The most important cases included the proceedings against PKP Cargo, which concluded with imposing on this company penalties in the total amount of 60 million zloty. The reason for this was the fact that the company (which performs around 90 per cent of all railway transports in Poland) imposed burdensome contractual terms on its contracting parties, differentiates them in an unjustified manner and creates barriers for the emergence and development of competition. Also the case concerning ZAiKS the Association of Authors, on which a penalty of half a million zloty was imposed for forcing the authors to grant it the exclusive authorisation for managing the rights to their works in all areas: public performance, mechanical recordings and radio and television broadcasting. The antitrust proceedings were instituted on the motion of the members of the “Brathanki” music band. Last year the President of the Office has also declared, that collecting fees for issuing the carrier of electronic season tickets by public transport operators in Poznań and Warsaw constitutes the abuse of a dominant position.

As far as prohibited anticompetitive agreements are concerned, the Office examined 59 cases in the year 2004. Some of them concerned fixing in price lists the amounts of fees for the treatment of animals by regional chambers of veterinary surgeons. All veterinarians in a given region were obliged to comply with this fees, which led to bringing the prices to one level and fixing them at a higher level than under normal competition. In another decision the President of UOKiK imposed penalties amounting in total to over 100 thousand zloty on Polskie Przedsiębiorstwo Wydawnictw Kartograficznych and Nowa Era publishing house for concluding an illegal agreement to exclude competition between them for ten years.

UOKiK held also over 559 explanatory proceedings concerning competition restricting practices. It also examined 256 cases concerning mergers and acquisitions.

Since the EU accession day the European Commission has the sole competence for issuing permits for granting state aid. The President of the Office is, however, still issuing opinions on aid schemes and on individual aid for entrepreneurs before they are sent to Brussels. During the last year 540 opinions were issued, large majority of them prior to the accession. After 1 May 2004 UOKiK has taken position on 79 cases of aid granted to entrepreneurs (70 of them being aid schemes). Moreover, the Office’s employees answered numerous inquiries from the beneficiaries, as well as entities granting aid.

Last year the Office undertook over one hundred actions on the basis of the Act on general product safety. 63 administrative proceedings were instituted - and large majority of them (55) resulted with the entrepreneurs voluntarily undertaking steps aimed at the elimination of the threat posed by the given product.

In the year 2004 UOKiK has developed fourteen draft legal acts - including the amendment to the Act on the protection of certain consumer rights and on the liability for a damage caused by a dangerous product, to the Trade Inspection Act, as well as the new Act on proceedings in matters relating to state aid. The most important of them was, however, the amendment to the Act on competition and consumer protection, completing the process of adapting Polish antitrust law to the new European system of competition protection. Among other things it introduced the possibility to mitigate sanctions against participants of prohibited agreement (the so called leniency system), who decide to cooperate with UOKiK. The amended act also gives the President of the Office  competences to institute antitrust proceedings on the basis of EU law and to impose penalties on European entrepreneurs violating those provisions, if their practices affect trade between Member States (two such proceedings are being held at present). Since the accession UOKiK has also commenced operations within the framework of the European Competition Network (ECN), being the platform for cooperation between the European Commission and all Member States.

Moreover, the Office has also issued opinions concerning almost three and half thousand of government bills  - including the Act on professions of public trust, the Act on large-area commercial objects, the Act on public-private partnership, as well as the act regulating the operations of pension funds.

Additional information:
Elżbieta Anders, Spokesperson of UOKiK
International Relations and Communication Department
Office of Competition and Consumer Protection
Pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warsaw
Ph.: (+48 22) 827 28 92, 55 60 106, 55 60 314
E-mail: [SCODE]ZWFuZGVyc0B1b2tpay5nb3YucGw=[ECODE]