New fine for abuse of dominant position imposed on CHAPS amounts to CZK 956,000
The national competition law has been infringed. The Chairman of the Office had to decide on the case repeatedly after the previous decision of the Office had been annulled on formal grounds within the judicial review.
According to the decision, CHAPS abused its dominant position on the above mentioned market of updated public transport timetable data transmitted by the obliged undertakings to the National Timetable Information System, thereby distorting competition in the market of automatic public transport connection search services with nationwide coverage and in the market for information on existing connection options in the Czech Republic. In this way, CHAPS de facto prevented competition with traffic information search engines from developing in the market. The Czech consumers and Seznam.cz, a.s., in particular were affected by this conduct, which took place between 2010 and 2013. For Seznam, updated timetables were a necessary input for the services it wanted to start providing.
In the new decision, the Chairman of the Office took into account the conclusions of the administrative courts, according to which CHAPS's continuing infringement was brought to an end by the initiation of administrative proceedings on 31 October 2013. He therefore reduced the fine imposed accordingly. The Chairman dismissed the remaining objections contained in the appeal, including objections to the definition of the relevant markets, the existence of a dominant position or its abuse. The legality of the Office's conclusions on these points has also been confirmed by the Regional Court's judgment.
Press Unit of the Office
23/005
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