Competition watchdog remains toothless, seven months after court judgment

Seven months after a landmark court judgment which barred the competition watchdog from imposing fines, the government has yet to take remedial action, prompting criticism from the Consumers' Association. In a judgment last May, the Constitutional Court ruled in a case by the Federation of Estate Agents against the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority that the Director for Competition could not impose fines. Only a proper court was vested with such powers as it could guarantee a fair hearing, it said. Moreover, the court had declared unconstitutional a number of Competition Act provisions regulating cases of infringements and the imposition of administrative fines by the regulator. This meant that some aspects of the law had to be amended and, in addition, the regulator's powers to enforce its own decisions had been restricted. This state of affairs was brought to the fore in a case involving a fuel supplier who, last October, was found to have pressured a petrol station owner to reverse a diesel price cut. Despite declaring such conduct in breach of competition regulations, the watchdog was not in a position to fine the supplier who had subsequently challenged the...

from timesofmalta.com http://ift.tt/2hxmC7X
via IFTTT