International Competition Network Unilateral Conduct Working Group Questionnaire Agency Name: Romanian Competition Council Date: 30th of October, 2009 Refusal to Deal This questionnaire seeks information on ICN members’ analysis and treatment under their antitrust laws of a firm’s refusal to deal with a rival. The information provided will serve as the basis for a report that is intended to give an overview of law and practice in the responding jurisdictions regarding refusals to deal and the circumstances in which they may be considered anticompetitive. For the purposes of this questionnaire, a “refusal to deal” is defined as the unconditional refusal by a dominant firm (or a firm with substantial market power) to deal with a rival. This typically occurs when a firm refuses to sell an input to a company with which it competes (or potentially competes) in a downstream market. For the purposes of this questionnaire, a refusal to deal also covers actual and outright refusal on the part of the dominant firm to license intellectual property (IP) rights, or to grant access to an essential facility. The questionnaire also covers a “constructive” refusal to deal, which is characterized, for the purposes of this questionnaire by the dominant firm’s offering to supply its rival on unreasonable terms (e.g., extremely high prices, degraded service, or reduced technical interoperability). Another method of constructive refusal to deal may be accomplished through a so-called “margin-squeeze,” which occurs when a dominant firm charges a price for an input in an upstream market, which, compared to the price it charges for the final good using the input in the downstream market, does not allow a rival on the downstream market to compete. This questionnaire, as well as the planned report, does not encompass conditional refusals to deal with rivals. In the case of a conditional refusal, the supply of the relevant product is conditioned on the rival’s accepting limitations on its conduct, such as certain tying, bundling, or exclusivity arrangements (see the recent reports of this Working Group, in particular the Report on Tying and Bundled Discounting (June 2009) and the Report on Exclusive Dealing (April 2008)). You should feel free not to answer questions concerning aspects of your law or policy that are not well developed. Answers should be based on agency practice, legal guidelines, relevant case law, etc. Responses will be posted on the ICN website. General Legal Framework 1. Does your jurisdiction recognize a refusal to deal as a possible violation of your antitrust law? If so, is the term refusal to deal used in a manner different from the definition in the introductory paragraphs above? Please explain. This deed may be considered an illegal conduct according to art. 6 of the Romanian Competition Law which prohibits any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position on the Romanian market or on a substantial part of it by which have as object or may 1 have as effect the distortion of the economic activity or the prejudice of consumers. The term of refusal to deal is defined as the refusal by a dominant firm (or a firm with substantial market power) to deal with its suppliers or beneficiaries. 2. Please state the statutory provisions or legal basis (including any relevant guidelines or formal guidance) for your agency to address a refusal to deal. Are there separate provisions for specific forms of refusal (e.g., IP licensing, essential facilities, margin squeeze)? The statutory provisions dealing with refusal to deal can be found at let. a) of Article 6 of the Romanian competition law. As concerns the secondary legislation, special provisions for the analysis of specific forms of refusal such as essential facilities and margin squeeze can be found in the Romanian Guidelines on the application of the competition rules to access agreements in the telecommunications sector. 3. Do the relevant provisions apply only to dominant firms or also to other firms? These provisions apply only to dominant firms. 4. Is a refusal to deal a civil/administrative and/or a criminal violation? If it is a criminal violation, does this apply to all forms of refusal to deal? Abusing practices are administrative in nature and fall within the scope of civil violations according to the Romanian Competition law. Sanctions amounting up to 10% of the total turnover achieved by the perpetrator in the financial year proceeding sanctioning are provided for these offences by Article 51(1a) of the Romanian Competition law. According to Article 60 of the Romanian Competition Law, the abuse of dominance may amount to criminal offence and might trigger the imprisonment of the persons involved in the abusive behaviour for a period between 6 months and 4 years or a fine. Experience 5. How many in-depth investigations (i.e., beyond a preliminary review) of a refusal to deal has your agency conducted during the past ten years (or use a different time frame if your records do not go back ten years)? During the last ten years, the Romanian Competition Council has had around 4 in-depth investigations of a refusal to deal, out of which only 2 of them have been finalized through a decision retaining and sanctioning an abuse infringement. 6. In how many refusal to deal cases did your agency find unlawful conduct during the past ten years? Please provide the number of cases concerning IP-licensing, essential facilities, margin squeeze, and all other types separately. For any case, in which your agency found unlawful behavior, please describe the anticompetitive effect and the circumstances that led to the finding. Within the last ten years, the Romanian Competition Council found unlawful conduct in 2 refusal to deal cases that led to a decision finding an infringement and imposing the appropriate sanctions (decisions dated 1999 and 2006). 2 For administrative systems -- i.e., the agency issues its own decision (subject to judicial review) on the legality of the conduct -- please state the number of agency decisions finding a violation, or settlements that were challenged in court and, of those, the number upheld and overturned. For judicial systems -- i.e., the agency challenges the conduct in court -- state the number of cases your agency has brought that resulted in a final court decision that the conduct violates the competition law or a settlement that includes relief. Please state whether any of these cases were brought using criminal antitrust authority. No. Please provide a short English summary of the leading refusal to deal cases (including IP licensing, essential facility, and margin squeeze) in your jurisdiction, and, if available, a link to the English translation, an executive summary, or press release. Romanian Shareholders Registry (RSR), Decision no. 247 [1999] The case came into the competition authority’s scrutiny, as a result of the complaint filed by seven independent stock registers against RSR. The complaint related to RSR’s refusal to transfer the registers of shareholders from the client companies. In this case, the competition authority defined the relevant market as the market of registering services on RASDAQ1, service which did not have substitutes at that time. Beneficiaries of this service were companies listed on RASDAQ which had the legal obligation to keep a shareholders’ register, as well as the evidence of shares issued and traded on this market. From the analysis carried out on this market, the Council found that in 1997, RSR held a dominant position, determined by its market share, respectively 100%, and in the following year, RSR held a market share of 96,4%. RSR owed its high market share to the circumstances of its establishment. Thus, RSR was set up in 1996 as a stock company, with the financial and logistical support of USAID, and took over, unconditionally and without charge, shareholders lists held by the National Agency for Privatization in a computerized register. This register included about 5700 companies. During 1997-1998, the Romanian National Securities Commission authorized another ten private independent register companies to operate on this market. The investigation established that, once the other private independent register companies entered the market, client companies had the possibility either to continue to use the services provided by RSR, or to transfer their shareholders list to another private Register Company. However, only 236 out of 585 companies that had requested the transfer effectively accomplished the transfer. The explanation of this phenomenon consists in RSR’s discriminatory behaviour. Thus, while for several companies that had not concluded a contract with RSR, the transfer was executed unconditionally, in other cases client companies were compelled to conclude a contract in order to have their shareholder lists transferred. Besides, RSR gave up charging the services performed to the companies that consented to enter into a contract. If client companies did not follow through with their intention to transfer, RSR wrote off their debts. At that time, according to the specific legal framework2, RSR was bound to transfer to other independent private register companies the shareholders lists, within a five day period from the day of registering the company’s request. The transfer should have been executed unconditionally, except in case when the issuer company is bound to pay to the register company the charge for the services 1 RASDAQ (National Securities Market was officially launched in October 1996, in order to address the need for a transparent, institutional and technical trading environment dedicated to companies that had become public following the Mass Privatization Program. 2 The regulation of this market is accomplished by the Romanian National Securities Commission (RNSC). 3 provided by it. If contractual relations were binding the issuer company and the register company, the transfer had to be executed unconditionally and without the imposition of a charge for that service.