This is the first AdC case opened based on a leniency application, and the first case in which members of the corporate bodies are accused, together with the companies, under article 47/2 of Law 18/2003.
The present infringement proceeding, opened by the Board of the AdC on 2.02.2007, arose from a statement of infringement brought to the knowledge of the AdC services through an application submitted, under the terms and for the purposes of the special exemption or mitigation regime provided for in Law no. 39/2006, of 25 August (hereinafter referred to as "Leniency Application"), as well as through complementary statements made under the scope of the duty to co-operate with the AdC, as provided for in that legal regime, by Mr. Manuel Maria Sá Coutinho de Lancastre, General Manager of Eurest, the applicant and the defendant, who informed the AdC that the defendant companies and Eurest, Trivalor,Uniself,ICA, Sodexo, Cecilia M. Andrade G. Silva (Sodexo),Manuel António Ribeiro Sevinate de Sousa,Mateus da Silva Alves,Carlos Alberto dos Santos Martins Moura e José Luis Silvestre Cordeiro) had agreed to fix prices and market shares in the market for the provision of meals supply services, in the hospital, school, prison, industry and services sectors. On 31.07.2012 the AdC issued a Condemnatory Decision for infringement of Article 4 of Law 18/2003. On 31.07.2012 a condemnatory decision was issued for proving the practice of which they had been accused, namely the infringement of the provisions of paragraph 1 of Article 4 of Law 18/2003. Following the above-mentioned condemnatory decision, on 12 October 2010, the Court ordered the performance of additional measures of proof requested by the defendant Trivalor. On 24.12.2009, the AdC issued a new Condemnatory Decision for infringing article 4 of Law 18/2003. The condemned companies and the fines applied are: EUREST (Portugal) - Sociedade Europeia deRestaurantes, Lda, a fine of 5,207,746.61 million euros; TRIVALOR- SociedadeGestora de Participações Sociais, S.A (which holds the companies Gertal and Itau), a fine of 6,778,686.20 million euros; UNISELF - Gestão e Exploração de Restaurantes de Empresas,S.A., a fine of EUR 1,742,124.83 million; and ICA - Indústria e ComércioAlimentar, S.A. / NORDIGAL - Indústria de Transformação Alimentar, S.A., a fine of EUR 634,387.87 thousand.
The Competition Authority also sentenced five members of the management bodies of the companies in question under Article 47(3) of Law 18/2003 for being aware of practices restricting competition and refraining from preventing them, and imposed fines totalling 20,000.00 thousand to directors and/or managers of Sodexo, ICA/Nordigal, Uniself, Itau and Gertal. The complainant, a former director of one of the defendant companies, was exempted from paying the fine.