On 29/01/2015, the Competition Authority (AdC) opened an infringement proceeding against SEAT Portugal, Unipessoal, Lda. (SEAT), for suspected infringements of competition rules, in particular the provisions of Article 9 of Law 19/2013, of 8 May and Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
The investigation identified the existence of an extended warranty contract, in force between 23 April 2013 and 4 May 2014, which prevented consumers from carrying out maintenance or repair operations in independent workshops, under penalty of losing their right to the manufacturer's warranty.
In May 2014, SEAT autonomously and voluntarily implemented a new clause and informed its Dealer and Authorised Repairer Network, as well as the customers subscribing to the extended warranty contract, that the clause identified as potentially restricting competition had been removed.
As the extended warranty should only come into effect after the expiry of the legal two-year warranty period (which would occur in 2015), the said clause could never be triggered, and therefore any possible restrictive effects on the market did not occur.
In this context, given the changes introduced by SEAT in May 2014, which resulted in (i) the elimination of the clause identified by the Authority as potentially restricting competition and (ii) the communication of such change to the customers subscribing to the SEAT Extended Warranty product and to the SEAT Dealer and Authorised Repairer Network, the AdC considers that the competition concerns identified by the Authority have been overcome.
On 22 December 2015, the AdC Board determined the closure of case PRC 2015/3, pursuant to article 24(3)(b) of Law no. 19/2012, of 8 May.