For the avoidance of doubt, it should be
stated that we regard your information as market information and not as a formal
complaint that has to comply with all legal requirements set out in Article 5 of
Commission Regulation 773/2004.
At the moment the Commission's services are
thoroughly examining the issues raised in the complaint with a view to deciding
whether or not a further investigation of those issues is warranted.
The
European Commission is committed to ensure that European competition rules are
fully respected by all companies in the IT sector as in any other sectors of the
economy. Therefore we appreciate that you have chosen to inform us of this issue
and we have taken note of your concerns.
Market information, such as the one
you have given us, is often not in itself sufficient to give rise to an
investigation. That being said, information from various sources may form a
pattern which might lead the Commission to initiate an investigation at a later
stage.
I nevertheless thank you for submitting this market
information.
I emailed the commission and said, amongst other
things, that Fairsearch is a cartel of companies colluding to increase their own
profits by reducing competition by lobbying the commission. I asked for the
commission's thoughts on the cartel-like nature of Fairsearch and how an
organisation like this is able to seemingly abuse the functions of the EU
Competition Commission.
Perhaps if more people wrote in something may happen but I
wouldn't be surprised if they were just filed away until a proper complaint was
made.
