Bulgaria regulator to check fuel retailers amid anger over price hikes
14/11/2018 09:02
SOFIA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Bulgaria's anti-monopoly
regulator, under pressure from public anger over rising fuel
prices, said on Wednesday it would launch checks at the main
fuel retailers to see if they have complied with measures
imposed last year to improve competition.
Hundreds of Bulgarians protested on Sunday against higher
petrol and diesel prices which officials say are mainly due to
rising global oil prices. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N1XM0WG
The Commission for Protection of Competition failed to prove
price fixing among six fuel retailers in March 2017 but ruled
they should stop any exchange of information on their price
policies and adopt internal procedures to guarantee efficient
market competition.
It will now check whether the Bulgarian units of LUKOIL
LKOH.MM , Royal Dutch Shell RDSa.AS , OMV OMVV.VI , Hellenic
Petroleum HEPr.AT , Gazprom Neft SIBN.MM and Bulgarian fuel
retailer Petrol 5PET.BB have adopted the measures.
"Following the increase of fuel prices for consumers... the
Commission considers it necessary to check the implementation of
the approved set of measures," the regulator said in a
statement.
In a bid to quell public discontent, the regulator has also
started a new analysis of the fuel sector to see if there are
any breaches of competition rules.
(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova
Editing by Peter Graff)
((tsvetelia.tsolova@thomsonreuters.com; +359-2-93-99-731;))