The detailed pricing information that was exchanged concerned the dealings of wholesalers with individual pharmacies and was generated by IT tools that connected the wholesalers with thousands of pharmacies across the country.

The intelligence thus gathered and exchanged by the wholesalers gave them a comprehensive picture of the market and allowed them to replace the normal uncertainties inherent to a state of competition with a precise and granular image of the procurement practices of each of the pharmacies at issue.

According to UOKIK, pharmacies and patients lost out by paying higher prices for their medicines.

The four fined wholesalers had colluded with a fifth wholesaler, which avoided a fine because it availed itself of a leniency programme that allowed UOKIK to uncover and dismantle the cartel.

The UOKIK decision is not an isolated case. In February 2022, the Belgian Competition Authority fined pharmaceutical wholesaler Pharma Belgium-Belmedis EUR 29.8 million as part of a settlement over that firm’s participation in a competition law infringement (see, Van Bael & Bellis Life Sciences News and Insights of 18 February 2022).

The other parties involved were Febelco and CERP. Febelco benefited from full immunity as the leniency applicant while CERP denied liability and ended up with a much lower fine of EUR 779,000 in October 2023.

At issue were an agreement among the wholesalers regarding the prices and services that were part of the “Transfer Orders System” in direct-to-pharmacy sales and an agreement on the application of uniform sales conditions for influenza vaccines sold to pharmacies during the annual pre-sales period.