Page 21 - FAIR TRADE COMMISSION 2023 ANNUAL REPORT

The Commission concluded that the joint decision of the two telecom businesses to discontinue the special offers was an illegal concerted action leading to critical competition restraints. Since both companies were major domestic mobile telecommunications service providers, the impact on the market was enormous. Therefore, the Commission fined Chunghwa Telecom 40 million dollars and Taiwan Mobile 36 million dollars. The fines totaled 76 million dollars.
● Ready mixed concrete suppliers achieved a mutual understanding on the allocation of trading counterparts
The Commission received complaints that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic caused gravel pits in China to shut down and domestic gravel supply and demand was impacted. As a consequence, the prices of ready mixed concrete in the country were affected. Therefore, the Commission initiated an ex officio investigation to see if there was any concerted action among ready mixed concrete suppliers in the northern region (Keelung City, Yilan County, New Taipei City, Taipei City and Taoyuan City).
The findings showed that 15 ready mixed concrete suppliers in Taoyuan City began to meet regularly in November 2018 to discuss and negotiate the allocation of ready mixed concrete supply cases in the Taoyuan area. They made the decision that all the suppliers involved had to pay regular fees and monitoring cameras would be installed for them to check supplied volumes and to supervise one another. Through their chat group, the 15 suppliers informed one another of the meeting time and location, talked about supply volume verification schedules, and reported supplied volumes. Being competitors, they even informed each other of their price quotations or inquired whether it was alright to give quotations or what the correct price to quote would be. Apparently, the purpose was to prevent price cutting to get customers. Meanwhile, the Commission also found evidence that Taiwan Cement, Goldsun Building Materials and Ya Tung Ready Mixed Concrete, three major suppliers in the country, had attended trade association get-togethers and participated in supply case allocation and price quotation negotiations.
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Important Achievements in 2023