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ABUSE OF DOMINANT POSITION: AMO SR initiated an administrative proceeding in the matter of possible abuse of dominant position in relation to providing real estate advertising services in the SR
Content
On 1 February 2022 the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic, the Division of Abuse of Dominant Position and Vertical Agreements, (hereafter “the Office”), based on its own initiative, initiated an administrative proceeding in the matter of possible abuse of dominant position according to the Article 5 Paragraph 3 of the Act on Protection of Competition (hereafter “the Act”) and the Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union in the field of providing services on real estate advertising online portals in the territory of the SR.
The Office initiated the administrative proceeding following a conducted investigation, during which the Office had obtained information and documentation raising suspicion that an undertaking operating in the field of providing services on real estate advertising online portals in the territory of the SR, since the begging of the year 2016, in relationship to its business partners providing brokerage services in the field of real estate selling and/or renting, could have been
- applying inappropriate prices for online advertising,
- applying conditions disadvantaging several business entities in the field of online advertising,
- restricting the possibility of choosing specific online portals for the purpose of online advertising,
- binding the provision of online advertising services to the use of other products and
- restricting the possibilities of placing advertisements and of using other additional services and functionalities on online portals in the field of real estate advertising.
According to the Article 42 Paragraph 1 of the Act, for breaching the prohibition of abuse of dominant position the Office shall impose a fine on an undertaking of up to 10 % of a worldwide turnover according to the Article 3 Paragraph 10 of the Act for a previous accounting period.
The initiation of administrative proceeding does not mean that the party to the proceeding has infringed competition rules nor does it prejudge conclusions, which the Office may reach in its decision in this matter.