• President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny brought charges against SCA PR Polska, a company responsible in the capital group for purchases in the Intermarche chain.
• The company is likely to abuse its contractual advantage against suppliers of agri-food products.

The proceedings has resulted from previous analyses of the President of UOKiK in the field of practices related to the use of contractual advantage by nearly 100 of the largest entities from the agri-food industry. Following this intervention,the majority of entrepreneurs disbursed the outstanding money to their suppliers for a total amount of over half a billion PLN and removed the questioned provisions from their trade policies and concluded contracts. One of the entrepreneurs who has failed to settle their outstanding liabilities is SCA PR Polska (SCA) - a company responsible for purchases in the Intermarche chain, which was charged by President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny with unfair use of their contractual advantage.

Based on the Office's findings, the entrepreneur might have abused his bargaining position towards suppliers of agri-food products. First of all, it has significant delays in payments, which can reach up to several million zlotys. Secondly, in the case of discrepancies in the price or quantity of invoiced goods, the company fails to pay the suppliers for all invoiced goods until the situation is clarified. In the opinion of the President of the Office, this practice is in breach of principles of good conduct, as the entity's obligation for the undisputed part should be payments made on time.

Objections are also voiced regarding the lengthy clarification of discrepancies in some cases, which resulted in unjustified prolongation of payment due dates. It happened that it would continue even from a few to several months, and in extreme cases almost two years.

“Prolonging the payment due date can be a form of SCA's crediting when it has already received the products and may sell them. This adversely affects the suppliers of agri-food goods to Intermarche stores. Failure to pay on time exposes them to loss of financial liquidity and significantly increases the risk of bankruptcy. Our role is to protect and support the retail chain suppliers to ensure that they receive payment for their deliveries on time,” says The President of UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny.

For the unfair use of contractual advantage, the company may be fined by up to 3% of its annual turnover.

These are not the only measures taken by the President of UOKiK towards entrepreneurs who do not pay their contractors on time. The Office has been conducting 72 proceedings under the Act on Payment Backlogs. 

Entrepreneur, farmer, if you operate in the agri-food industry and your major contractor abuses its competitive advantage by imposing unfavorable conditions of cooperation – report it to the UOKiK. We have launched a special form to assist you in reporting irregularities. You can fill it out here: https://ankieta.uokik.gov.pl/formularz-zgloszenie-przewaga/.

Additional information for the media:

UOKiK Press Office
pl. Powstańców Warszawy 1, 00-950 Warsaw
Phone: 22 55 60 246
Email: biuroprasowe@uokik.gov.pl
Twitter: @UOKiKgovPL