The Competition Council has the most intense activity this year, both in terms of the carried out investigations and those that will be finalized, says the president of the institution, Bogdan Chiriţoiu, who adds that the Council is still investigating the situation of the explosion of electricity prices starting from the beginning of this year.

“The year 2017 is one with the most intense activity for the Council. We have launched nine investigations, which is quite a lot. We are talking about infrastructure works, where we suspect the existence of cartels, others are related to the tariffs for the connection to gas networks”, stressed out Bogdan Chiriţoiu, according to News.ro.

At the same time, Chiriţoiu says that in the next period, investigations will be finalized at companies suspected of rigged tenders for drilling works from Transgaz and Romgaz. He also said that an investigation, regarding a possible cartel for the purchase of electrical equipment by Electrica, will be completed this year.

“We have many internal quality assurance mechanisms – every investigation is verified by several teams, we need a judicial mandate to do inspections, we work very closely with the European Commission – more than half of our cases have to pass through Brussels and are supervised by the European Commission, which greatly reduces the risk of making mistakes or abuses”, says Chiriţoiu.

At the same time, the president of the competition authority says that lately, more and more companies have recognized their guilt, after seeing the evidence from the investigations. “The recognition procedure has gone very well lately, more and more companies are admitting their guilt, analyzing their behavior and seeing what evidence we gathered during the investigations”.

Last year, 93 companies admitted breaking the law, out of 120 companies sanctioned. The fine may be reduced by up to 30% of the base level, if the companies admits its guilt prior to the completion of the investigation, or by 20% if they partially admit their blame.