By Ibrahim Alawi

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — A judicial committee at the Administrative Court in Riyadh has upheld an earlier ruling sentencing five popular restaurants a total amount of SR8.26 million for conspiring among themselves to fix their prices at a time the prices of the foodstuffs have come down.

Court sources said the restaurants appealed the preliminary verdict against them in the Administrative Court, which rejected the appeal and upheld the sentence.

The court also decided to name and shame the restaurants in the local media at their own expense.

The court said the restaurants violated the norms of a system for healthy competition in the market by agreeing among themselves to exorbitantly raise their prices.

The system is aimed at ensuring and encouraging fair competition and fight monopoly.

The system also prevents bodies of the same nature from reaching agreements among themselves to increase prices thus violating the norms of fair competition.