
The Competition Council (CC) fined Avia Invest 31.21 million lei for failure to comply in time with part of the previous CC decision.
The Competition Council adopted this decision at a meeting on June 15 while applying a penalty in the appropriate amount to Avia Invest, the concessionaire of the Chisinau airport. During Monday's briefing, CC Director Alexei Ghertescu recalled that in 2020 Avia Invest was fined 31.63 million lei for unfair and unreasonable setting of the lease term for MGH Ground Handling and differential application of tariffs for providing lease services to ground handling companies. By the end of 2020, the company had to pay the amount of the fine to the state budget, as well as to eliminate the violations found by CC. According to Ghertescu, Avia Invest disagreed with the amount of the fine charged by CC and appealed to the court, and the case is still pending. However, during 2021 Avia Invest did not comply with the obligation to end the violation regarding the differentiated application of the ground handling service tariff, only fulfilling it at the beginning of 2022. Therefore, CC decided to resort to an additional procedure and apply a penalty of a precautionary nature starting January 1, 2021 in the amount of up to 5% of the average daily total turnover of Avia Invest in the year preceding the application of the penalty for each day of delay. The calculated amount of the penalty reaches 31.21 million lei. The company must pay it within 60 working days. The CC decision can be appealed within 30 days. //20.06.2022 - InfoMarket.