The Competition Council fined Avia Invest in the amount of 17.48 million lei for failing to notify of obtaining indirect control over Aeroport Handling.
The council made the relevant decision after analyzing the relationship between Avia Invest, which has been managing the Chisinau Airport since 2013, being its concessionaire, and Aeroport Handling, which provides ground handling services at the airport. The Investigative Committee found that these companies had carried out an economic concentration operation, which consisted in obtaining Avia Invest indirect control over Aeroport Handling. This process began in May 2014 (after the privatization of the enterprise, previously 100% of its authorized capital belonged to the state) and took place in several stages. Indirect control was obtained through economic dependency, including through airport infrastructure lease agreements, interest-free loan agreements and through structural ties (for example, the administrator of Aeroport Handling was appointed to the board of Avia Invest). As a result of this economic concentration, Avia Invest gained indirect control over Aeroport Handling, leading to the vertical integration of the companies involved. This integration allowed the new owner, Aeroport Handling, to put pressure on the company's sole competitor in the ground handling market (MGH Ground Handling). The Competition Council qualified this economic concentration as incomparable with the competitive environment, and Avia Invest was fined in the amount of 17 million 480 thousand lei for failure to notify the economic concentration by gaining indirect control over Aeroport Handling. It is worth noting that the Competition Council recently fined Avia Invest in the amount of 31.21 million lei for failure to comply with a part of the previous decision of the CC. This decision was made by the Investigative Committee by applying a penalty in the appropriate amount to the concessionaire of the Chisinau airport. In 2020, Avia Invest was fined in the amount of 31.63 million lei for unfair and unreasonable determination of the lease term for MGH Ground Handling and differentiated application of tariffs for rental services to ground handling companies. The company announced its intention to challenge this decision of the CC. Earlier, Avia Invest appealed against a similar fine for market dominance and won the case in the Supreme Court of Justice. // 18.07.2022- InfoMarket.
