As a result, and following the investigative actions carried out by the competent services of the Council, grievances were notified to nine companies operating in the markets of supply, storage, and distribution of Diesel and Gasoline as well as to their professional organization, in accordance with the provisions of Article 29 of the aforementioned Law No. 104.12. This notification of grievances was the subject of the press release by the General Rapporteur dated August 2023.

Subsequently, the companies concerned and their professional organization expressed their wish to benefit from the provisions provided for in the aforementioned legal framework, notably the transactional procedure provided for in Article 37 of Law No. 104-12 as amended and supplemented.

In response, and in accordance with the provisions of this article (Article 37), the Council’s Board examined and approved the requests for opening discussions submitted by the companies concerned and their professional organization. To this end, the Council’s Board mandated the General Rapporteur to engage in formal discussions with each of the companies concerned and their professional organization, and to submit transaction proposals to them within the limits set for him.

These discussions led to the signing of transaction minutes recording the agreement of these companies and their professional organization on the transaction proposals submitted to them.

Subsequently, and in accordance with the current legislation, the Council convened to rule on the transaction minutes submitted to it and unanimously decided to validate the concluded transaction agreements. These agreements thus put an end to the contentious procedures initiated against these companies and their professional organization, who were notified of this decision on November 23, 2023.

These agreements involve the payment, as a transactional settlement, of a total amount of 1,840,410,426 MAD (one billion, eight hundred forty million, four hundred ten thousand, four hundred twenty-six dirhams) for all the companies concerned and their professional organization, as well as the undertaking of a set of behavioral commitments to improve the competitive functioning of the hydrocarbons market in the future, to prevent risks of harm to competition to the benefit of consumers.

The commitments made within the framework of this transactional procedure are binding, and their implementation will be monitored by the Council’s services. They include the establishment of a competition law compliance program that reflects the commitment of the companies at the highest level of their hierarchy to comply with competition rules.

Moreover, in order to enable the Council to monitor the competitive functioning of the relevant markets, particularly regarding the correlation between the public selling prices of Diesel and Gasoline and the international prices of these refined products, the said commitments provide for the establishment and submission of a detailed report allowing the monitoring of the supply, storage, and distribution activities of Diesel and Gasoline by each company.

This reporting, which will span a period of three years with quarterly information reporting, will include monthly purchases and sales to the stations made by each company, as well as their levels of Diesel and Gasoline stocks.

The companies concerned have also committed to adjusting their prices, as necessary, based on market supply and demand dynamics, the storage constraints, and the commercial policy specific to each company.

These companies will also ensure that their price adjustment system allows independent service stations in their network full autonomy to change public selling prices at their level, immediately, at any time, and without prior approval.

Similarly, the said companies have committed not to in any way link the benefit of rebate or discount programs or any similar program that service stations may benefit from to compliance by the service station with the recommended prices set by the companies.

Furthermore, in order to prevent risks of anticompetitive practices related to the exchange of sensitive information, the commitments made provide for the adoption and implementation of best practices regarding the collection, exchange, or sharing of this information, particularly at the level of managing common storage infrastructures, and joint supply operations in Diesel and Gasoline. Guidelines will be adopted and published by the Council to ensure the conduct of these activities in compliance with the current competition legislation.

Finally, to ensure the effective implementation of the aforementioned commitments, the Competition Council will monitor them in accordance with the current legislation, and for this purpose, periodic evaluation reports will be communicated to it by the companies concerned and their group.

Done in Rabat on November 23, 2023

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Following deliberations and in accordance with the provisions of Article 39 of the aforementioned Law 104-12, the Council made Decision No. 80/D/2022, imposing a pecuniary sanction of three million dirhams (3,000,000) on the Order of Chartered Accountants.

This sanction was imposed due to the Order’s violation of Article 6 of the aforementioned law, which prohibits agreements, in any form or for any reason, that aim to prevent, restrict, or distort competition in a market, particularly when they seek to:

• Obstruct price formation through market forces by artificially favoring price increases or decreases;
• Limit market access or free competition by other companies.

Thus, following the investigation of this referral, the Competition Council concluded that the Order of Chartered Accountants engaged in anticompetitive practices, including:

• The implementation by Order members of an agreement regarding the setting and dissemination of a minimum average price not less than 500 dirhams per hour excluding taxes, which was made mandatory for all chartered accountants operating in the national market for financial and legal or contractual accounting audits. The Order also intervened with certain public institutions to enforce this minimum price in the tenders they concluded. These practices by the Order of chartered accountants distort free competition in the relevant market and limit access for companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to the market for accounting and financial audit services at competitive prices;
• The inclusion by the Order of Chartered Accountants in a number of its documents of anticompetitive provisions, setting a minimum price in a market open to competition, even though price setting is not among the tasks entrusted by the legislator to the Order, as defined by Law No. 15-89 governing the profession of chartered accountant and establishing an Order of Chartered Accountants.

Additionally, the Council ordered in the aforementioned decision that the Order of Chartered Accountants make the necessary amendments to remove all anticompetitive provisions from its documents within 60 days from the date of receiving this decision. After this period, a daily penalty of four thousand dirhams (4000) will be imposed on the Order of Chartered Accountants.

Done in Rabat on August 03, 2022

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