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The Antimonopoly Office suspects the municipality of Rimavska Sobota of advantaging the undertaking in the market of funeral services

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On 20 June 2014 the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic, Division of Cartels initiated the administrative proceedings against the municipality of Rimavska Sobota in the matter of possible infringement of the article 39 of the Act No. 136/2001 Coll. on Protection of Competition as amended (“the Act”) in connection with the provision of funeral services in the territory of municipality of Rimavska Sobota.

On the basis of gathered evidence the Office suspects that the municipality of Rimavska Sobota through its subsidised organization Technicke sluzby mesta Rimavska Sobota approved a pricelist of cemetery and funeral services resulting in the benefit of that subsidised organisation over its competitors.

The pricelist contains double prices of funeral services and the customer is entitled to the lower prices only if he/she orders complete services from Technicke sluzby mesta Rimavska Sobota, i.e. provided that he/she would not use the services of the competing funeral company. In addition, the pricelist also included “Fee for transportation of deceased – other firms”, charging of which may result in advantaging the undertaking Technicke sluzby mesta Rimavska Sobota against other undertakings in the market of funeral services. The fee is charged only to the competing funeral companies. Municipal subsidised organisation Technicke sluzby mesta Rimavska Sobota is not only the operator of the cemetery in the territory within the city but also a provider of funeral and cemetery services. From this reason the municipality of Rimavska Sobota should observe that all fees are equally charged to all funeral companies.

The fact that the Office initiated administrative proceedings does not imply that the party to the proceedings has infringed the competition rules, nor does it prejudge the conclusions which the Office may arrive at in its decision.