Aug 7 - In addition to extensive documentation and evidence that the company Mercator, d.d. had already submitted to the Competition Protection Office (CPO) in the course of the past months, today the Company submitted to the CPO further evidence proving substantially that the company Mercator, d.d. operates independently on the supply market, and in line with the common trading practice.
The reason behind Mercator’s decision to present additional evidence was the fact that, judging from the communication with the CPO representatives and their media statements, the company found that there might be a probability that the CPO had misinterpreted the concept of uniform price lists practice on the market, mixing it with harmonized joint operations, although this is a common trading practice in European trading and not the form of harmonized joint operations.
The additional evidence presented today by Mercator to the CPO consists of the expert opinion of the international consultancy firm A.T. Kearney, which clearly and beyond doubt finds that the trading practice of endorsing uniform prices is usual for the branch, and that from the commercial aspect it presents neither obstruction of the competition, nor any kind of harmonized joint operations.
Mercator has had a standing request for harmonized pricing on the market written in all its general agreements already from the year 2004 onwards, and its contracts with suppliers had already been checked by the CPO in various procedures. The latest such inspection was performed in regard to the review of concentration on the occasion of acquisition of the company Era operations. In the said Decree from the year 2006 the CPO had explicitly asserted that Mercator general supply contracts are in no aspect harmful for the competition.
At the same time the company Mercator, d.d. proposed to the CPO to allow within the process of finding all the relevant facts testimonies of commercial executives of the company Mercator and relevant sales officers of a representative choice of its suppliers, which could help understand the common methods of performing business between trading companies and their suppliers.
Mercator had also requested the CPO to review all business documentation seized within the searches performed on 7th July and 8th July which will show that Mercator had never harmonized any of its activities with any of its competitors, but has always operated in line with common European trading practices.
Following the already committed procedural mistakes and breach of legal regulations by the CPO Mercator hence expects from the CPO to operate legally, professionally, and politically independently, having in mind that in case of acting otherwise it might induce irreparable business damage both to the company Mercator and to numerous other Slovenian companies.