Okaz/Saudi Gazette

RIYADH — The General Authority for Competition (GAC) acknowledged that the government agencies employees’ lack of full knowledge about the methods of detecting violations of the Competition Law has made it easier for the establishments to commit some violations.

This has enabled the establishments to have mutual clandestine understanding and be complicit in a number of government competitive process thus harming competition.

The Competition Law aims at protecting and promoting fair competition and fighting monopolistic practices affecting legitimate competition.

In a recent report, the copy of which was obtained by Okaz/Saudi Gazette, the authority stated that the clandestine agreement between the establishments to be complicit in government competitive processes recorded an increase during the year 2019, reaching eight percent of the total violations, after it reached seven percent during 2018.

The lack of familiarity with the provisions of the Competition Law by some establishments, the increase in the possibility of the establishments winning the competition at the highest possible price, and the failure to properly formulate a brochure of conditions and specifications, are among the factors that contributed to making the possibility of complicity high, the report pointed out.

The GAC released the report at a time when it launched a service for reporting violations of the Competition Law without the complainant needing to reveal his identity in order to encourage the public to help the authority carry out its mission.

In a similar development, the authority had approved 49 applications for economic concentration (merger or acquisition) for establishments during the last year, some of which included companies listed in the stock market.

The GCA decided to change the fee for each concentration request, after it was SR1,000 in the past, to become proportional compared to the total sales of companies that applied for economic concentration, by adopting the total sales of companies multiplied by 0.0002 provided that the fee does not exceed SR400,000.