The Basque Competition Authority (AVC) revealed this Monday that it has filed a file, in this case last week, with the Euskal Sagardoa Denomination of Origin Regulatory Council, for a possible “collective recommendation on cider prices” from several establishments in a sector with a long tradition in the territory.
Consulted in this regard by this newspaper, authorized spokespersons for Euskal Sagardoa indicated that they want to study carefully with the associates what was announced this Monday by Competition before issuing an assessment, which could take place these days.
The Euskal Sagardoa Denomination of Origin Regulatory Council brings together 52 cider houses, including the vast majority of the most important ones in Gipuzkoa, and 250 producers from the entire Basque Autonomous Community.
The president of the AVC appeared for two hours before the Economic Commission of the Basque Parliament to present the report of this entity corresponding to 2022, as well as its action plan for this year. Urresola explained that last year the agency imposed six fines for abusive or anti-competitive practices on as many companies from different sectors, sanctions whose overall amount amounted to 251,898 euros, more than double the sum of the fines imposed in 2021.
Food industry
But one of the outstanding issues was the one related to the agri-food sector, in the midst of the inflation crisis, which, as the appearing party herself highlighted, was the “protagonist” of the actions of this entity in 2022. In this sense, she recalled that this is ” an essential sector that has a very direct impact on citizens and in which some links in the chain have a position of more power to the detriment of others”. In this sense, she recalled that the AVC analyzed this sector in a study approved last July.
In another order of things, Urresola indicated that 2022 was “a very intense year” in regard to the application of sanctioning procedures for “abuses in the market by economic operators.” Last year, the AVC Investigation Directorate worked on 31 cases in their various procedural phases, and processed six disciplinary proceedings.
Four of those files had already started in 2021, and they referred to real estate commissions for rent, the activity of a fumigation company, Gipuzkoa funeral homes, and a tender from the Bilbao City Council. The two new files initiated were motivated by the prices of the hotel industry (in the Getabat area) and tenders from the public entity EJIE. In the Gipuzkoa funeral homes file, Grupo Rekalde 21 and jointly and severally the parent company Tadosa were sanctioned with a fine of 166,920 euros.