[ad_1]
The Competition Council sanctioned the company Dante International, operator of the eMag platform, with 32.28 million lei (approximately 6.7 million euros), accusing the online retailer of abusing a dominant position in the market of services of intermediation through online platforms such as market.
The Council imposed a series of corrective measures on eMag in order to restore the normal competitive environment and prevent such incidents.
“The speed with which we developed the eMAG platform was not without its mistakes, but we learned from them every time and they helped us adapt the model. The platform development process has often involved quick fixes in the interest of clients, but some of them have been unpredictable for other parties involved in the platform. Although isolated, these situations have raised concerns from the competition authority, with which we have done our best to identify a very predictable, transparent and balanced way for all parties to benefit from an online trading platform and the client to follow being a priority. Our. Even if we received a sanction, we took advantage of the good part of this experience: we learned to offer a very good service at the same time to customers and partners in the Marketplace, through a system of constantly improved rules and algorithms, based on technology. . Thus, clients benefit from innovative services that save them time and money, and partners benefit from significant development opportunities, in Romania and neighboring countries, ”said Iulian Stanciu, CEO of eMAG, in response to the Council’s announcement Competition.
Following the investigation started at the end of 2017, the Competition Council found that Dante International, as owner and administrator of the online platform eMAG Marketplace (www.eMAG.ro), abused its dominant position, between January 2013 and June of 2019., in particular, by positioning and showing more favorably its own product offering to the detriment of the offers of the partners who negotiated on the platform and with whom it was in direct competition.
In this way, the company limited the offers of eMAG.ro affiliate partners, which caused the effect of real competition between the product offerings presented on this platform. Dante International recognized the anti-competitive act and benefited from a reduction in the fine.
In order not to repeat these events, the competition authority required the company to adopt a series of measures regarding the algorithms used by the platform, with Dante having the obligation to fully and correctly inform the partner merchants about the operation of the algorithms, such as listing, those to position products on the platform and limit manual interventions in the operation of the relevant algorithms.
At the same time, the company must develop changes in the organizational structure, create a management system for the data collected and stored through the platform, so that access to these aggregated data is achieved in a non-discriminatory manner.
At the same time, Dante needs to improve its complaints policy, creating a set of good practices in managing the relationship with participants on the platform.
This year, Romania applies the European Regulation (2019/1150) on promoting fairness and transparency for companies using the services of online platforms and online search engines. The regulation, also called Platform for companies – P2B, aims to create a competitive, fair and transparent online environment by imposing a set of specific obligations. Thus, among other things, the Regulation stipulates that online platforms must display the “terms and conditions” of use, ensure that they are easily accessible to user companies during all stages of the commercial relationship and present situations and situations in a transparent manner. conditions in which they can suspend. , sista or in which they may impose other restrictions on the provision of services to user companies. Online platforms must also display general information on how the terms and conditions affect the ownership and control of the intellectual property rights of user companies.
The largest online retailer in Romania announced after the announcement of the competition authority that it was collaborating with it and providing all the information about the functioning of the Marketplace platform.
See the full position of eMag below:
“EMAG and the Competition Council reached a common agreement on the facts investigated for the period 2013 – June 2019. eMAG cooperated with the competition authority throughout the investigation and made available, in a transparent manner, beyond the obligation legal to cooperate, all the data and information on how the Marketplace platform works for a complete understanding of this new e-commerce model.
The eMAG platform operated in the first 12 years of activity only with direct sales. Then gradually, through the eMAG Marketplace platform, partners had the opportunity to sell their products, based on rules that were adapted along the way, as the platform evolved. Simultaneously with the payment of the fine, the company voluntarily assumed a series of measures before the competition authority, through which the rules and algorithms will be much more transparent. In this way, the development prospects of partners will be increased through predictability, access to data and rapid problem solving.
<>> said Iulian Stanciu, CEO of eMAG “.
[ad_2]
