Competition Commission

The Competition Commission has imposed fines totaling 18.83 million euros on five well-known cosmetics companies and Notos Com Holdings for cartel practices.

Aktor was hit on Thursday with a 38.5-million-euro fine - a record in Greece - and another nine construction companies were fined, for a total of 80.7 million euros, concluding the first stage of the infamous case of the "contractors' cartel" which, for a period of 23 years, from 1989 to 2012, were found to have been rigging the tenders for a series of public works, including those co-funded by

A law firm appears to have filed a number of fabricated complaints with the Hellenic Competition Commission in recent months with the aim of blackmailing the companies accused in those complaints.

The Competition Commission on Thursday issued its conditional approval of the Sklavenitis supermarket group's takeover of the outlets of its bankrupt rival Marinopoulos, demanding the sale of 22 stores belonging to the two chains (19 of them in Attica), and the increased protection of suppliers with a high dependence on the two major retailers.

Greece's Competition Commission announced it has identified cartel practices in the field of healthcare supplies aimed at pushing up the price of artificial kidney filters sold to the country's state hospitals.

Parliament will approve the concession contracts for the 14 regional airports to be operated and upgraded by the Fraport-led consortium just after Easter, and definitely before the completion of the bailout review.

Supermarket chain Sklavenitis announced on Tuesday that it is in the process of absorbing the Greek retail network of rival chain Veropoulos, to be completed by the end of the year.

By Dimitra Manifava

The Competition Commission will be focusing its efforts on the energy sector, food and basic household commodities in the coming months, targeting these sectors specifically because they have the biggest direct impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.

By Dimitra Manifava