(Reuters) – The Polish antimonopoly office UOKiK has fined the local unit of Italian truck and bus maker Iveco Group 155 million Polish Zlotys ($40 million) over an alleged cartel in the sale of Iveco Trucks with distributors, it said in a statement on Monday.
UOKiK said it had also fined 10 local distributors 83 million Zlotys and 10 managers a total of 2.5 million Zlotys, including one from Iveco Poland for 490,000 Zlotys.
Iveco Poland and Iveco Group were not immediately available for comment.
Iveco Poland, which imports Iveco trucks to Poland, and distributors had illegally divided the local market into zones on which distributors had priority for customers and set the prices of vehicles sold, using anti-competition commercial strategies between 2009 and 2019.
The importer also had its own area of granted exclusivity for the sale of certain types of trucks at a certain time, it said.
“Unlawful agreements between entrepreneurs always mean losses for the recipients of their products or services, including consumers,” UOKiK President Tomasz Chróstny said.
($1 = 3.8424 Zlotys)
(Reporting by Alberto Chiumento, Tymon Miller; editing by David Evans)
