The Board of Directors of the Competition Protection and Prohibition of Monopolistic Practices Authority decided to refer some of the highway transportation companies in Damietta to the public prosecution after proving that they made three violations to the competition protection law through agreeing to increase the prices of the products.
The Competition Protection and Prohibition of Monopolistic Practices Authority explained in a press statement on Sunday that the Competition Protection Act provided for the criminalisation of agreements between competitors, which would create a range of effects on the market, including raising, lowering or fixing prices or restricting marketing operations, noting that this exactly the violations monitored by the authority in Damietta`s highway transportation sector.
The authority revealed that it found that some of the highway transportation companies in Damietta agreed to raise the prices by 30% in the highway transportation of containers.
Notably, the authority`s investigation came after monitoring the rise in prices of transportation services following the government’s decision to raise fuel prices between 17.4% and 66.7% in the mid of last June.
The highway transportation market accounts for 53% of the total transportation market, which means that any increase in this market will be charged accordingly to the prices of finished products, which will restrict competition and harm the principles of the free market, that negatively affects the structure of the market and imposing new burdens on the consumer, that he was not to bear in the natural competition context.
