Competition Authority probes alleged criminal cartel activity

The Competition Authority investigated 34 complaints of alleged criminal cartel behaviour or price fixing in 2013, as well as reviewing 14 such complaints carried over from previous years.

Despite listing these figures in its annual report for 2013, the authority could not give any specific details of the alleged cartel cases it investigated, though it said only eight are still under assessment.

The authority also investigated 92 new complaints of anti-competitive agreements and abuses of dominance during 2013, 65 of which were examined and closed during the year.

It said while it receives hundreds of complaints, only a small proportion raise concerns significant enough to warrant a full probe.

Among the cases the authority took was against the Irish Medical Organisation.

In July, the minister for health announced that he had decided to reduce the fees payable by the HSE to GPs for providing services to eligible patients under the General Medical Scheme (GMS). According to the authority, the IMO’s GP committee issued a press release condemning the proposed reduction in fees and saying it had been decided that GPs would withdraw from the provision of certain services.

The authority said the IMO’s action constituted a decision by an association of undertakings “which would limit collectively the range and quality of services provided by GPs to GMS patients”.

“As such, it was a decision which had the object and/ or effect of preventing, restricting or distorting competition in the State and which might also affect trade between EU member states,” it said.

The authority managed to force the IMO to suspend the committee’s decision and the case is expected to be heard in the first half of this year.

The authority made 39 merger determinations of which six were carried over from 2012. There was an increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions notified to it in 2013 (37) compared to 2012 (33).