PRC/2016/7 originated from a complaint, received by the Portuguese Competition Authority (AdC) on 26/11/2015, regarding a possible violation of competition rules in the scope of the markets defined by the Complainants as being (i) the market for the chartering of hotel ships for the operation of cruise services and/or (ii) the market for the operation of river cruise services and hotel ships, for more than one day, in the Douro River.
According to the complaint, it is alleged that there are indications of the following practices restricting competition:
1. Abuse of dominance (in several forms) by Douro Azul;
2. Practices restricting vertical competition adopted by Douro Azul; and
3. Practices restricting horizontal competition adopted by Douro Azul and CroisiEurope.
In order to establish the necessary facts to discover the truth, on 17 January 2017, searches, examination, collection and seizure of documents were carried out, pursuant to Article 18(1)(c) and (2) of the Portuguese Competition Act.
On 04/12/2017, the AdC informed the Complainants that the case was expected to be closed, since it concluded that the facts concerning the behaviours under investigation and investigated in the process, supported by the identified evidence, do not allow to demonstrate the existence of prohibited practices, in particular by Article 9 of the Portuguese Competition Act, there being no grounds, nor the conditions to proceed with the opening of an investigation. In fact, it was not possible to prove the existence of any agreement of wills or concerted action between the undertakings in question that had the object or effect of distorting the market. It is also considered that the conditions for prohibition set by Article 101 of the TFEU are not met, and the intervention of the authority under this legal provision is not justified. Therefore, the AdC has decided to close this case.