Bulgaria's competition watchdog has opened a case against another retail chain, Zhelyo Boychev of the Commission for Protection of Competition (KZK) told BNT. The name of the chain will be announced later.
The commission is also running eight cases over suspected cartels, and fuels are under constant watch. In the fuel case, the KZK proved abuse of a dominant position and two violations: in the fuel storage market and in the wholesale market. The fine of more than €133.9m (more than 262m leva) is the largest the commission has imposed.
The KZK has also started its own inquiry, without any complaint, into relations between retail chains and Bulgarian producers and suppliers. Producers complain a lot, Boychev said, but there are almost no formal complaints. The commission works on those it receives and is seeking better cooperation with other institutions.
The interview followed fines on one of the big chains in Bulgaria and the criticism that came after them. At the end of 2016, the KZK fined the chain about €168,700 (about 330,000 leva), and the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the fine in 2021. In 2025 the same company received two more fines of €127,823 (250,000 leva) each. Both cases are still pending in court, and financial and economic expert reports are being prepared for them.
Reactions in the media and on social networks do not affect the commission's work, Boychev said. It does what lawmakers have told it to do. He said the fines are not unprecedented in Europe: the Polish regulator has imposed much higher ones that survived court review, and France has a similar example. The commission has arguments and evidence for the violations, but the court has the final say.
Boychev named the so-called annual negotiation as the main problem. Every year the chain sends all suppliers a proposal for an "improvement", which in practice means a lower price. Long talks follow on what percentage to cut, and the agreed deal applies retroactively from the start of the year.
It is harder in the other direction. When a producer asks for a higher price because of its costs, the retailer stalls or gets in the way, Boychev explained. In meetings with producers, the KZK found that some had not raised their prices for years, even though their costs and shelf prices had changed.
"This is not a fair split of the added value. And so the added value from the producer moves to the retailer," Boychev told BNT.
The KZK also watches for unfair practices with products labelled as Bulgarian. The commission checks whether goods of foreign origin are labelled and sold as Bulgarian, mostly fruit, vegetables and other products with a higher risk of such abuse.
Another problem is retailers' own-brand products. Boychev said they are a big problem in Europe too, where laws and rules on the issue are being actively drawn up. The KZK is watching the issue because some of these brands risk pushing out local production if left unchecked. Boychev warned: "Because when we kill our own production, and when we destroy it, this will be the result."