The Office for Competition and Consumer’s Protection (UOKiK) suspects that PZU Zycie, part of PZU insurance group, forced agents to sign contracts which adversely affected their businesses. UOKiK launched investigation because the contracts had a provision forbidding to offer insurance from different companies. Agents signed contracts not to run any other profit operations without PZU written approval. PZU does not say whether it feels guilty.
“The company has received information that UOKiK launched investigation. A reply is being prepared now concerning the decision of the authorities”, PZU said in a statement.
This is the second investigation by UOKiK. In 2005 Invest-Pol filed a similar suit. UOKiK collected evidence and prepared a draft of its decision. Just before it was issued, Invest-Pol withdrew its application and UOKiK had to end investigation.
“We withdrew the suit because we reached agreement with PZU”, Jan Kowal from Invest-Pol said.
In April, rules changed and UOKiK may start investigation by itself, without suits being filed. The maximal fine for PZU amounts to 10 percent of last year’s sales and in case of PZU Zycie it would exceed PLN 758m (EUR 200.1m).
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.264)