Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has imposed a penalty of some 213 million Polish złoty ($56.7 million) on Russia’s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom for failure to cooperate in anti-monopoly proceedings related to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.
“Violation of the laws of Poland, a Member State of the European Union, will result in financial sanctions provided for in such laws. To my mind, it is an intentional act, the aim of which was to obstruct the ongoing proceedings,” UOKiK President Tomasz Chróstny said in a statement published on the watchdog’s website.
Since 2018, UOKiK has been investigating whether Gazprom created a consortium to finance the construction of Nord Stream 2 without Chróstny’s consent, which would violate Polish law. The watchdog has investigated six companies in the case: Gazprom, German firms Uniper and BASF’s Wintershall Unit, Anglo-Dutch company Shell, Austria’s OMV and France’s Engie.
Gazprom failed to provide UOKiK with information for the case — such as documents on gaseous fuel transmission, distribution, sale, supply and storage agreements — that it requested earlier this year.
“The intentional nature of the company’s actions is reflected by the fact Gazprom did not even request a consent to providing information (from) the Ministry of Energy of Russia … Failure to request such a consent implies that Gazprom did not even intend to reply to the request of the Authority at all,” UOKiK’s statement says.
UOKiK also said that it is approaching the end of the proceedings over the alleged creation of the consortium. If the watchdog concludes that this was a violation of the law, the joint company potentially faces a fine equal to 10% of its annual turnover.
In addition, if the consortium has already been created and it is no longer possible to restore competition on the market, UOKiK may order the total or partial disposal of the joint company’s assets and the shares granting control over it. It may also order that the consortium be dissolved.
If completed, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would allow Moscow to ship gas directly to Europe and bypass transit through Ukraine. The project has been highly controversial and faced stiff opposition from Ukraine and Poland.
In December, the U.S. government announced it would impose sanctions on companies involved in Nord Stream 2’s construction, bringing work on the project to an abrupt halt. In June, four members of the U.S. Congress introduced bipartisan legislation that may expand sanctions on the construction of the $11-billion pipeline.
