European Commission makes antitrust inspections in Romania gas market

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said it had carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of several companies active in the supply and transport of natural gas in Romania.

The European institution said that its officials made the controls on June 6 as the EC suspects these companies “may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices and/or the abuse of a dominant market position”.

“The Commission is investigating potential anticompetitive practices in the transmission and supply of natural gas in Romania, in particular relating to suspected anticompetitive behaviour aimed at hindering natural gas exports from Romania to other Member States. The Commission officials were accompanied by their counterparts from the Romanian competition authority,” said the EC in a statement.

Transgaz, the state-owned company managing the gas transmission network in Romania, said it anti-trust inspectors were present at its HQ in Medias yesterday. The company said it fully supported the investigation and gave and all the information and documents that the officials had requested.

The state-owned gas producer Romgaz confirmed the inspections, according to news portal HotNews.ro, which added that Austrian oil major OMV Petrom is also part of the investigation.

A spokesperson of the Competition Council confirmed for business daily Ziarul Financiar that these three companies were visited by the European inpectors.

The EC said that the unannounced inspections are just a preliminary step into suspected anticompetitive practices and this doesn’t automatically make the investigated companies guilty.