The Romanian Competition Council has imposed fines totaling 5.35 million lei (approximately €1.07 million) on five companies operating in the medical waste management sector — Stericycle, AKSD, Bio Hazard, Eco Fire, and Mondeco — for participating in anti-competitive agreements on the market for the treatment and/or disposal of medical waste.
The fines were distributed as follows: Eco Fire (Constanța) received a fine of 1.41 million lei (around €282,000); AKSD (Mureș) was fined 950,431 lei (around €190,000); Bio Hazard (Mehedinți) 128,227 lei (around €26,000); and Stericycle (Ilfov) 2.86 million lei (around €572,000). Stericycle was sanctioned both for its own conduct and for that of Mondeco, with which it merged during the course of the investigation.
The investigation found several bilateral agreements among the companies — between Stericycle and AKSD, Mondeco and AKSD, Stericycle and Bio Hazard, and Stericycle and Eco Fire — aimed at dividing the market by allocating clients and/or territories. These arrangements effectively eliminated competition among the parties, as they agreed not to compete for specific customers in certain Romanian regions.
For example, Stericycle and Bio Hazard agreed not to compete for clients in Drobeta Turnu Severin, while Stericycle, Mondeco, and AKSD coordinated on client allocation in Mureș County. A similar strategy was implemented by Stericycle and Eco Fire, under which Eco Fire focused on clients near Constanța and Stericycle concentrated on clients in the Bucharest area.
According to the authority, these practices restricted both the companies’ ability to act independently in selecting clients and the customers’ freedom to choose their service providers. Such behavior, which involves the allocation of markets or customers, constitutes a serious infringement under Romanian competition law.
The fines imposed by the Competition Council are enforceable, and the amounts collected will be directed to the state budget. The National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) is responsible for executing the sanctions. The Council’s decision will be published on its website once all confidential information has been removed.
