No contest for IRHA
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by Brendan Nolan • An anti-competition action brought against the Irish Road Haulage Association ended abruptly in the Irish High Court last week.
The Competition Authority had claimed the IRHA broke the law by operating a cartel, and that it had attempted to impose increased haulage rates on shippers and distributors working out of Dublin Port.
In May it wrote to shippers setting out new suggested rates.
The authority also claimed that the defendants and other hauliers had organised the subsequent blockade in order to address grievances regarding rates. The IRHA, while conceding that a technical breach of competition law was committed in suggesting uniform increases to shippers in May, denied organising a blockade.
The stoppage, it claimed, was a spontaneous action by some hauliers arising from a dispute at one depot that spread through the port on the following day.
The IRHA claimed it could not defuse the 1997 situation because it was precluded from negotiating for members by the threat of legal action, following a dawn raid on its offices by the Competition Authority seeking evidence of collusion in anti-competitive actions.
But, with the court facing a second week of evidence, the Competition Authority dramatically announced that the action had been settled, and the charges were struck out.
As part of the settlement, the court issued a declaration that the defendants had engaged in a concerted practice to fix prices and that this concerted practice was prohibited and void under Section 4 of the Competition Act, 1991.