TIRANA, March 19 /ATA/ – Albania’s Competition Authority has launched a preliminary investigation into the wholesale and retail market of the paramedical protective equipment, including face masks, hand sanitizers, disinfectants etc. to discover the suspected price gouging, as public concern over the COVID-19 has increased.
The country’s competition watchdog said in a press release on Thursday that “taking notice of a number of complaints forwarded to the Competition Authority over the increased prices of the paramedical materials, the Competition Authority, in compliance with the law ‘On Competition Protection’, monitored this market to evaluate the behaviour of retail and wholesale providers of these materials.”
“The inspection action focused on the sale of medical protective materials, including alcohol-based hand sanitizers and face masks as the consumer demand for such materials has been increasing. On-the-spot verification has found: the market lacks materials at the retail level (pharmaceutical network) and an unjustified price increase of these materials (pharmaceutical warehouse and pharmacy network). There are reasonable signs of a potential anti-competitive behaviour of companies operating in this area. Therefore, the Competition Authority decided to launch a preliminary investigation into the wholesale and retail market of paramedical materials. This investigation shall cover the period from 1 January 2020 to 31 May 2020,” the press release read.
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