Bulgaria's Commission for Protection of Competition will start imposing heavier fines from February 2009, although new rules have been in place since early December. In a bid to curb monopoly abuse and unfair competition, the watchdog will fine firms up to 10 per cent of previous-year turnover instead of fixed fines.

To illustrate how the new rules work, the Sofia heating utility was slapped with two fines of a combined 450 000 leva for using its monopoly position to act against users' interests. The old law set the cap at 300 000 leva, or less than 0.1 per cent of the utility's 2007 turnover of 365 million leva.

In December, cellphone operator Globul was fined 150 000 leva for a misleading text game. The fine made up 0.01 per cent of the carrier's 2007 revenue of 806 million leva. Globul's main competitor, Mobiltel was fined for a similar game in early 2008. The fine of 150 000 leva accounted for 0.013 per cent of the operator's 1.141 billion leva revenue for 2006.

The watchdog estimated it imposed fines of a combined 8.41 million leva for unfair competition and monopoly abuse in 2008.

Source: Dnevnik