The Consumer and Competition Authority may soon be able to impose penalties, as experts conclude a rework of regulations in view of a court decision.

“Basically, we looked at what process the authority goes through to impose the fines and we tweaked it to be able to do so without being in breach of any court judgments or anyone’s rights,” Helga Pizzuto, who chairs the authority, said. 

We tweaked it to impose fines without being in breach of any court judgments

The new system is expected to be operational “soon”, she added.

The Authority effectively ended up toothless when in May 2016, a court ruled that certain provisions of the Competition Act were unconstitutional. The matter had been raised by the Federation of Real Estate Agents in response to a €1.2 million fine imposed on it by the competition tribunal.

The court ruled that the Director-General of Competition could not decide cases of alleged breaches of rules and impose fines because only a proper court could guarantee a fair hearing.

READ: Competition authority still in limbo 2 years after judgment rendered it toothless

As a result, the authority refrained from imposing fines, even in cases where it found a breach of the law.

The government told Times of Malta last December that amendments to Malta’s Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority Act, Competition Act, Consumer Affairs Act and subsidiary legislation had been drafted with a view to public consultation “in the next few weeks”. However, no definite time frames were given about when the competition tribunal’s full powers would be restored.

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