The Belgian Competition Authority (BMA) has imposed provisional measures on the car sales platform AutoScout24.be for allegedly abusing its dominant market position. If the car site does not comply with the measures, it risks penalty payments of 20,000 euros per day with a maximum of 7 million euros.
Sven Van Malderen
Journalist at HLN
Source: Belga
In March, the competition watchdog announced an investigation into AutoScout24, the largest used car website in Belgium. The complaint came from TCS Mobility, which competes through the carselect.touring.be platform. AutoScout24 appeared to have broken the automated transfer of data between both platforms.
“Irreparable disadvantage”
Thanks to this data transfer, professional second-hand car resellers only have to enter all used car data once for different platforms. So they don’t have to do that again and again for every platform on which they want to publish the offer.
In a preliminary analysis, the BMA determines that it indeed appears that AutoScout24 is abusing its dominant position. “This could cause a serious and irreparable disadvantage,” the competition authority said in a press release.
“Can cost customers”
“Since sellers are reluctant to manually encode data a second time, this can cost customers. However, as a new market player, it is necessary that TCS has a critical mass of suppliers to remain in the market,” it said.
The competition watchdog therefore obliges AutoScout24 to restore the automated data transfer to carselect.touring.be. Otherwise, penalty payments will follow. A decision on the merits will follow later.
