November 11 (BTA) - The Commission on Protection of
Competition (CPC) said on Thursday that Lukoil has violated the
Protection of Competition Act and the Treaty on the Functioning
of the European Union.

The Commission instituted proceedings against Lukoil Bulgaria  
in connection with abuse of monopoly or dominance at the request
 of OMV Bulgaria, without specifying the cause for the
complaint.

Considering the socioeconomic importance of fuels due to their
direct impact on the prices of goods and services on the
Bulgarian market, the Commission has analyzed the competitive
market environment of motor fuels under the antitrust
proceedings.

CPC found that Lukoil has limited the access to its tax
warehouses, thus violating the law. The regulator stresses that
the Lukoil Group owns the largest warehouse and transport
infrastructure network, which makes it the most dominant
enterprise on the motor fuels market.

The Lukoil Group companies abused that strong position by: not
making their tax warehouses available for others to store fuels,
 restricting the access to their tax warehouses, connected to
the biggest sea terminals for oil in the country and not making
their pipelines for transporting imported fuels available for
others, CPC said.

These practices indicate the Group's common strategy for
creating barriers for fuel imports inside Bulgaria, CPC added.
Such actions aim to redistribute the demand for fuels on the
internal market and force traders to search for fuels of local
origin, which are those produced by Lukoil. That narrows
wholesalers' choice and affects the final price for the
consumers.

Lukoil Group's corporate conduct constitutes abuse of dominance,
 according to both Bulgaria's national law and European Union
law, as it restricts the import and may affect trade between the
 EU member states, CPC noted.

Lukoil may submit written objections within 60 days. RY/KK

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