They were accused of implementing a fuel distribution agreement in Corsica, thereby potentially harming consumers. The company TotalEnergies Marketing France, two companies from the Rubis group and EG Retail were fined, Monday, November 17, 187.5 million euros by the Competition Authority.
TotalEnergies Marketing France was fined 115.8 million euros. The sanctioned entity, the shareholder of Corsica Oil Depots, “have implemented anti-competitive practices that may exclude their non-shareholder competitors”who therefore suffer higher costs, authorities said in a press release on Monday. This can “Ultimately harming consumers by causing an increase in fuel prices at gas stations”inform the institution.
The Competition Authority accused the sanctioned players of entering into written agreements to grant passage rights within Corsican oil depots for their own benefit. Competitors do not benefit from these agreements “forced to purchase fuel under conditions determined by their own competitors and, moreover, suffer from higher costs, due to the superposition of several margins”.
A little competitive pressure
In detail, apart from the TotalEnergies group entity, Rubis Terminal was fined 430,000 euros, Rubis Energie was fined 64.2 million euros, and EG Retail was fined 7 million euros. The company has one month to appeal the sanction but it will not be suspension, the Competition Authority told Agence France-Presse.
The authorities detailed that“no refineries have been installed in Corsica and there are only two oil depots there”operates according to the storage capacity collection system under the management of DPLC.
This last entity is historically “controlled and operated jointly by four operators (TEMF, Shell, BP and Esso)”however various asset sales between 2010 and 2017 put it on hold “under the exclusive control of Rubis”.
The Competition Authority determined that they had been investigating this matter since December 2021. In September 2022, they received complaints from Ferrandi’s company and “continuing to merge the two parts of the file”.
He observed that the fuel distribution sector is highly concentrated on the island, “based only on three operators (Total, Rubis/Vito and Esso/Ferrandi)”. These actors did not suffer as much as those in mainland France “competitive pressure, in particular, from large and medium sized stores”.
