The Greek Competition Authority’s plenary accepted a settlement proposal submitted by BioCosmos and imposed a reduced fine of €123,106.38. It found that the company abused its dominant position, contrary to Greek competition law and Article 102 TFEU.

The case concerned the supply of F18-FDG radiopharmaceuticals to private nuclear medicine laboratories contracted with Greece’s National Organization for Healthcare Services Provision for PET-CT scans. The authority’s investigation began after a complaint from a company active in the sector.

The authority found that BioCosmos held a dominant position in the relevant supply market from 2019 until the first months of 2022. From August 2021 to March 2022, it told contracted laboratories that they could obtain F18-FDG from only one supplier per day. In the market circumstances, this condition created de facto exclusivity and was capable of substantially restricting the only alternative supplier’s access to customers.

BioCosmos presented the one-supplier-per-day requirement as an obligation under the laboratories’ contracts with the healthcare organization. However, the authority found that no such term appeared in those contracts. The practice was enforced when BioCosmos refused to fulfil orders for a laboratory that had scheduled same-day deliveries from a competitor.

The authority noted that exclusive supply imposed by a dominant company can restrict effective competition and constitute an exclusionary abuse. It accepted BioCosmos’s settlement proposal under its dispute settlement procedure and imposed the reduced fine. This was the authority’s first abuse-of-dominance case resolved through that procedure; the full decision is to be published in the official gazette and on the authority’s website.