I670 - ACEA-SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT/PUBLIACQUA (INVESTIGATION COMPLETED)
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
WATER INDUSTRY: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY FINES ACEA AND SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT OVER ANTI-COMPETITIVE ARRANGEMENT INTENDED TO COORDINATE THEIR COMMERCIAL STRATEGIES
Fines of €8.3 million and €3 million respectively
The Italian Competition Authority, at its meeting on 22 November 2007, determined that ACEA and SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT had set up an anti-competitive arrangement in the national market for water services management and fined the two companies Euro 8.3 million and Euro 3 million respectively.
The arrangement began in 2001 and achieved its aim of coordinating the commercial strategies of these two companies which compete in water management; the main effect was that they jointly participated in Direct Bids for these services or in the procedures for taking a controlling interest in licensed operators – so-called public-private partnerships (PPP) – in a significant number of water districts [Ambiti Territoriali Ottimali].
In the Authority's view, the arrangement directly conditioned the outcome of almost a quarter of the tenders for the management of water services throughout the country, besides having a significant impact on other tenders subsequently let to other companies, and all this just as the market was being opened up to competition.
Specifically, ACEA and SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT had systematic recourse to the formation of Temporary Industrial Groupings for strategic purposes when they could have bid individually in competition with each other, since they were respectively the main national operator in Italy and the largest foreign provider of water services in our country. On this point, the Authority emphasizes that the Temporary Industrial Grouping as an institution is legally neutral and may even favour competition so long as it involves minor players but not when it brings together two or more of the main operators in a market, when it is a tool in a wider project of cooperation and when it is used repeatedly in such a way that it effectively does away with the companies' industrial autonomy.
The Authority also analysed the contents of a clause in the industrial agreement for the management of Publiacqua which was included in the tender documents for the acquisition of 40% of its business. Based on that clause, ACEA, SUEZ ENVIRONNEMENT and Publiacqua were to exchange information as to their bidding strategies. The Authority deemed that clause to be consistent with the anti-competitive cooperation existing between the parties and therefore ordered that the pact be cancelled, and in any case forbade its implementation.
Rome, 28 November 2007