The Portuguese Competition Authority (AdC) opened an infringement proceeding on September 17, 2009, following complaints from IMS and Apifarma stating that the ANF closed the market for pharmacy data and market research by stop supplying data to IMS. In addition, ANF created HMR to develop the studies that IMS did.
The evidence of the facts and the finding of an infringement against the Defendants was based on a finding that the Defendants were abusing their dominant position on the market for pharmacy trade data by means of a margin squeeze on undertakings competing in the market for pharmaceutical research based on that data.
It was concluded that, the ANF Group [along with its affilliates] uses its position in the data market of a representative panel of pharmacies through a margin squeeze in the downstream markets, market studies based on commercial data from pharmacies.
The conduct in question is the result of a global strategy that covers the entire business chain at issue here: ANF is the decision-making centre of the Group's activity and each of the defendant companies played a decisive and autonomous role in the margin squeeze, including Farminveste SGPS, which directly controls 100% of Farminveste IPG's activity and, indirectly, HMR's activity.
In fact, having knowledge of the conduct of its subsidiaries, not only did it not prevent or put an end to it, but it intended to prevent or put an end to it, by claiming and considering such conduct as its own, vis-à-vis the market. Moreover, since Farminveste SGPS, Farminveste IPG and HMR share the same management, it was incumbent on them and the companies they represent to take the appropriate measures to put an immediate end to the infringement (margin squeeze) by those known to them, and they therefore breached their monitoring and surveillance obligations. Decision: Condemnatory decision
A condemnatory decision was adopted on December 22, 2015, imposing fines as follows:
ANF: € 635,000.00 (six hundred and thirty five thousand euros);
Farminveste SGPS: € 9,080,000.00 (nine million and eighty thousand euros);
Farminveste IPG: € 360,000.00 (three hundred and sixty thousand euros);
HMR: € 265,000.00 (two hundred and sixty five thousand euros).