The Competition Council announced on Monday that it had imposed sanctions on eight companies operating in the market for products and protective equipment in the field of health and safety at work, imposing fines totaling more than 4.8 million lei (€987,622).

The following companies were sanctioned:

• Renania Trade SRL: 2,511,958 lei (507,670 euros)
• Avanti SRL: 329,802 lei (66,653 euros)
• Tricomexim SRL: 118,683 lei (23,984 euros)
• T&T Invest SRL: 223,313 lei (45,131 euros)
• Mariad Serv SRL: 108,004 lei (21,826 euros)
• Litind SRL: 230,763 lei (46,636 euros)
• Dalgeco Confecții Textile SRL: 311,529 lei (62,959 euros)
• Lingemann Beschaffungssysteme SRL: 1,052,759 lei (212,763 euros)

The antimonopoly authority says that after an investigation, it found that “eight companies coordinated their market behavior by exchanging commercially confidential information in order to increase their profits. In this way, companies have separated their customers by implementing joint strategies to approach them to ensure that they do not compete.”

• “In practice, companies allocated their market products and coordinated prices in private auctions organized by some firms (customers) to allocate their customers according to established strategies. Thus, customers were directed to receive from the company they were assigned to at the price it charged, limiting their choice to purchase products from another supplier at a better price.
• Protective gear and protective equipment covered by anti-competitive agreements include clothing, footwear, gloves, masks, air purifiers and self-contained breathing apparatus and shields,” the statement said.

Renania, Avanti, Dalgeco and T&T cooperated with the competition authority as part of the leniency program, making significant contributions to the anti-competitive act investigation, benefiting from reduced fines.

Also, Renania, Avanti, Dalgeco, T&T, Tricomexim and Litind admitted anti-competitive actions, which led to a reduction of the fines applied to them.