The year that is about to end has not been particularly prolific in terms of sanctions for the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), in charge of pursuing cartels or any other market abuse business practice. Since January, the competition authority has barely imposed half a dozen small fines, and would have closed one of the less active exercises in this area if it had not been for the serious punishment imposed on Apple and Amazon in July.
The amount of fines this year stands at 210 million euros, 32% less than the 308 million in 2022. The figure is, in reality, similar to the 200 million in 2021, but it has nuances because, in case if the penalty on Amazon and Apple had not been taken into account, it would have remained at just 16 million, the lowest since 2013, when the body was created, only behind the seven million in 2020, the year of the pandemic and also of the arrival in office of the current president, Cani Fernández. The previous stage, with José María Marín Quemada at the helm, exceeded 500 million a year.
However, the CNMC has opened a new front by fining Apple and Amazon with 194 million euros for restricting competition in Spain, as it has limited both the distributors of the smartphone manufacturer’s products and the advertising spaces of its competitors. It is the second largest competition penalty to date for a group of companies, behind the 203 million for the construction companies, and the first for one in particular, Apple, which will have to pay 143 million, unless it prevents the courts
The rest of the sanctions of the year have been lower: 11 million to Telefónica for breach of the merger agreements with DTS, 5 million to contractors of the Ministry of Defense, 3.5 million to suppliers of commercial register data, 1.5 million to Xfera Móviles for not notifying a purchase and a little more than 31,000 euros to taxi drivers in Murcia.
There have been no major news on dismantling cartels, but there have been announcements of the opening of files that could lead to sanctions next year, including the most recent, related to the drug distribution market in pharmacies, which has already included inspections in companies.
Possible anti-competitive practices are also being investigated in the transport of goods by rail, in the distribution of tenders for travel agencies, in the electricity sector, in agricultural machinery and in hairdressing products. From 2020, inquiries to food distribution companies are still open.
Since the end of March, there has been a disciplinary case against another technological giant, Google, which is being investigated for imposing “unfair conditions” on the press and news agencies.
Instead, this year files were filed on covid ICO credits and, at the end of November, on the publication of fake reviews on Amazon, Booking and Tripadvisor.
