CCPC publishes 2017 Annual Report
August 30, 2018
The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has today published its 2017 Annual Report.
The report compiles the impact of the CCPC’s work on behalf of consumers and businesses in Ireland, including securing the first criminal conviction in Ireland for bid rigging and the first custodial sentence for misleading a consumer in the sale of a car.
The CCPC’s vision is for open and competitive markets where consumers are protected and businesses actively compete. In 2017, we were active in a number of sectors across the economy including; vehicle crime, ticketing, motor insurance, mortgages, waste collection, PCP car finance and the import of unsafe products. In the retail sector we took enforcement action against a number of traders for breaching consumer protection law with 35 Fixed Payment Notices paid by traders and Compliance Notices issued to 12 traders directing them to comply with consumer law.
Our merger review activity also continued at a pace with 72 mergers notified to us and we issued 68 determinations in 2017. In four of the determinations we required commitments from the parties to alleviate competition concerns. We also commenced an investigation into a suspected incident of “gun jumping” where we had reason to believe that parties implemented a relevant transaction prior to receiving our approval.
In anticipation of Brexit, we sought to contribute to the wider Government response by commissioning the ESRI to assess what the potential financial impact of Brexit could be on Irish households.
Our work to inform consumers about their rights and financial education resulted in over 1.7 million visits to our website, ccpc.ie, and 42,112 contacts from consumers and businesses. We ran seven consumer awareness campaigns on personal finance and consumer rights issues including; buying a car, car finance, mortgage switching, first-time home buyers, personal loans, buying online and shopper’s rights.
Full details of the CCPC’s 2017 Annual Report are available here.
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