The CNMC has required the Ministry of Public Works to eliminate anticompetitive restrictions on passenger transport in the segment of hiring a car with driver (VTC). These restrictions have been introduced by the Royal Decree 1057/2015, which incorporates obstacles to competition that have no economic justification.
The restrictions detected by the CNMC are the following:
1) qualitative limits: if the Public Administration considers that there is an imbalance between supply and demand or, in any case, when the ratio 1:30 (one VTC license for every 30 taxis) is exceeded, VTC authorizations can be refused.
(2) prohibitions of exercise: the RD requires VTC services to be previously contracted
(3) geographical compartmentalisation: VTC shall serve regularly in the territory of the Autonomous Community in which the authorization has been granted
(4) minimum number, representativeness and age of vehicles: unjustified technical requirements are established to operate as a minimum of 7 vehicles and a maximum age of 10 years.
This requirement is a prerequisite to its judicial appeal.
Source: CNMC
(Amaya Angulo)
Author: Claudio Lombardi
http://clombardi Claudio Lombardi is editor-in-chief of the Antitrust Observatory. He is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and at the Europa-Kolleg Institute for European Integration, Hamburg. Claudio is also a visiting lecturer at the International University College of Turin (IUC). Before joining the Max-Planck, Claudio was a research fellow at the Higher School of Economics and Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development, Moscow, where he worked, with Prof. Ioannis Lianos (UCL), on a project on competition law and policy in the global food value chain, involving the cooperation of numerous national and international institutions. Prior to joining the Institute, he was a PhD student (competition law) and tutor (in private law) at the University of Trento and a Max-Planck Institute guest researcher (MPRIV – Hamburg). Claudio was also awarded a DAAD Grant of the Europa-Kolleg Institute of Hamburg in 2013 and an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship for doctoral researchers in 2012.
You can write him at clombardi27 at gmail.com
The CNMC has required the Ministry of Public Works to eliminate anticompetitive restrictions on passenger transport in the segment of hiring a car with driver (VTC). These restrictions have been introduced by the Royal Decree 1057/2015, which incorporates obstacles to competition that have no economic justification.
