The Competition Council has punished the major oil companies in Romania, OMV Petrom, OMV Petrom Marketing SRL, Rompetrol Downstream SRL, Lukoil Romania SRL, MOL Petroleum Products SRL and Eni Romania with 205.8 million euros (880,5 million lei) in fines, the president of the National Competition Authority, Bogdan Chiritoiu, announced.

This is the highest fines given by the Competition Council, Chiritoiu said.

The calculation started from a base of 4 percent of turnover, and the companies were slapped with fines above or below 3 percent of their turnover.

OMV Petrom has received the highest fine, accounting for more than 3 percent of turnover, the company being considered as the initiator of this cartel.

"Perhaps, as not to lose the market share in favor of competitors, the companies have agreed to withdraw from the market the EcoPremium range. This situation determined the Competition Council to impose the fines," said Bogdan Chiritoiu, adding that this type of fuel represented a share of 20 percent of the companies' sales and continuing supply, which required special logistics, would have caused losses.

Advantages for the companies would have been on the logistics chain and not on price, through this cartel, he underlined.

"We are the only ones in Europe having found direct evidence of the understanding between the oil companies. The law prohibits competitors to exchange information or to harmonize the information inside the group. Each company may take any decision it wants, but not exchange information. Rompetrol received a fine of less than 3 percent of turnover because it did not participate directly in the meetings of the Association of Romanian Oil Businessmen and OMV Petrom was fined more than 3 percent of turnover because its moves were considered as aggravating circumstances. We took into account the fact that the understanding did not affect the full market and that is why we applied a smaller fine percentage", Bogdan Chiritoiu explained.

The law stipulates that the fine can go up to 10 percent of the turnover of a company.

Investigations were initiated in 2005, starting from a suspicion related to the prices, and investigations continued in the period 2005-2009.