Four advertising companies accused of price fixing
The Office for Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) will announce the
start of an investigation aimed at determining whether the four largest
advertising companies, AMS, Europlakat Polska, Grupa Stroer, and Grupa
Outdoor, agreed to fix minimum prices for advertising billboards. According
to an anonymous source, for the last few weeks the anti-monopoly watchdog
suspects that the "big four", who control nearly 75% of the market, agreed
that they should all charge at least $130 (zl. 520) per month for an advert
on a billboard as the only way to avoid losses. The companies'
representatives admit taking part in a meeting to discuss pricing strategy,
yet maintain that they did not make any illegal arrangements. "The agreement
followed a common research report, which cost over zl. 7 million. Based upon
its findings, we decided to liquidate several thousand billboards, which
would reduce their numbers by 16% to 17%. We also found that currently the
price of $130 is on the edge of profitability," said Lech Kaczon, the head
of Grupa Outdoor. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 4) M.K.
