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The GVH terminated its proceedings against ALT CASH Kft.

The Hungarian Competition Authority (hereinafter: GVH) terminated the proceedings it had initiated against ALT CASH Kereskedelmi és Szolgáltató Kft. for a suspected infringement of the prohibition of restrictive agreements.

Based on the information at its disposal, the GVH investigated whether the undertaking had enforced the recommended end-user prices contained in its contracts with cash-register services providers in order to force them to use these prices when setting the minimum prices to be charged in the resale and retail of the SAM4s cash-registers that were being exclusively distributed by the undertaking. Furthermore, it investigated whether the abovementioned contracts contained a condition which enabled the undertaking in question to terminate a contract if a minimum number of SAM4s cash-registers were not purchased or if they were not preferred to the cash-registers of other manufacturers.

The evidence acquired during the investigation did not contain any information regarding the fixing of recommended end-user prices or the use of them to set minimum prices. There was also no information which suggested that the undertaking had exerted any pressure or offered any incentive if recommended end-user prices were fixed or used to set minimum prices. The GVH reviewed all the contracts of ALT CASH Kft. that contained an expectation that five pieces of each type of cash-register would be sold each year. Based on the available evidence, it was not proven that the stipulation of five pieces a year would influence the market of cash-registers in a way that would lead to service partners retailing only - or almost exclusively - the brand of one distributor.

Moreover, on the initiation of the proceedings it was assumed that ALT CASH Kft. had threatened to cancel the contracts of those cash-register services providers that preferred the cash-registers of other manufacturers to SAM4s cash-registers during retail. However, in the contracts and other documents acquired by the GVH there was no such condition.

The GVH terminated its proceedings regarding the investigation of the activities mentioned above, as according to the evidence obtained, an infringement of the Hungarian Competition Act could not be proven and no further results could be expected from continuing the procedure.

Case number: Vj-68/2011.

Budapest, 16 July 2013.

Hungarian Competition Authority

Further information:
Katalin GONDOLOVICS
Spokes-woman
Mail: 1054 Budapest, V. ker. Alkotmány u. 5.
Postal address: 1245 Budapest, 5. POB 1036
Tel: (+36-1) 472-8902
Email: press@gvh.hu
www.gvh.hu