December 17 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's Commission for Protection of Competition said on Tuesday that it has imposed a 50,000 levs ($29,000/26,000 euro) fine on local company Blimus, which signed a distribution agreement with Cadillac Europe after illegally obtaining and using privileged information from a direct competitor.
Bulgaria's Industrial Commerce Co was in advanced talks with Cadillac Europe, with all correspondence subject to a non-disclosure clause, when its then-CEO Savina Konstantinova and another Industrial Commerce Co employee decided to quit their jobs and start parallel talks with Cadillac Europe, subsequently leading to the agreement with Blimus, the competition regulator said in its decision.
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Blimus was fined an additional 10,000 levs as in September and October 2019 it still claimed to be an official distributor of cars under the Cadillac and Chevrolet brands, although its agreement with Cadillac Europe had already expired.
Blimus is 100% owned by US-registered South East Europe Developments as of September 2019. Beforehand, it was fully owned by private individual Nikolay Petkov.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)