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AMO SR issued commitment decision in the field of repair and maintenance of motor vehicles

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In November 2015 the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic, the Division of Abuse of a Dominant Position and Vertical Agreements (hereafter “the Office”), initiated the administrative proceedings in the matter of possible agreements restricting competition in the area of providing after-sales services relating to selling motor vehicles in the territory of the Slovak Republic.
 
The Office initiated five separate administrative proceedings in this area. Proceedings were initiated following the investigations made in the area of provision of after-sales services related to the sale of motor vehicles of different brands. Based on the documents gathered the Office suspected that undertakings may have infringed the Act by concluding vertical agreements which might restrict the repair and maintenance of motor vehicles only to the members of authorized networks. Undertakings could have committed the mentioned conduct by the fact that they might have made a guarantee conditional to realization of repair and maintenance only in service stations belonging to authorized networks. Thereby the independent (unauthorized) services should have been disadvantaged.
 
Decisions relate to provisions of official documents issued by a producer/importer of vehicles under given brand (especially service books etc.) allowing refusing guarantee on vehicles only on the basis of visiting independent services, disregarding the quality of the repair/maintenance performed by given service.
 
Throughout the administrative proceedings the individual participants to the proceedings proposed certain commitments, by accepting of which it might be possible to conclude the administrative proceedings. As the Office came out mainly from the provisions within board documents (service books etc.), the participants to proceedings proposed changing of provisions of documents concerned along with informing customers (personally and also on web site of a given brand of vehicles) with valid guarantee that it is not conditioned by performing repair and maintenance exclusively in authorized brand services.
 
Currently, the Office concluded all five administrative proceedings by commitment decisions. For these decisions it was decisive that the proposed commitments eliminate the competition concerns identified by the Office, namely sufficiently effectively, in a short time and for lower administrative costs. Effective cooperation from the side of participants to the particular administrative proceedings positively influenced the achieved results.