Poland: Issued ruling against Allegro for abuse of dominance through self-preferencing

On 29 December 2022, the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) sanctioned the online shopping platform Allegro with a fine of PLN 206 million for abusing its dominant position through self-preferencing. Allegro is both an intermediary platform in e-commerce (allegro.pl), and also sells goods on its own online store, called Official Allegro Store (OSA). OSA was the largest seller on allegro.pl. UOKiK decided to sanction Allegro for using non-public information from the sales on its platform to adjust its accuracy algorithm and rank and display its own offers in a preferential matter in the search results on its page. Furthermore, Allegro used features not available to its competitors, such as discount coupons and recommendation carousels, to further favour its own store. Besides the monetary penalty, Allegro is ordered to cease its anti-competitive conduct. While the creation of sales algorithms itself and the collection of data are still allowed, they cannot be used to abuse Allegro's dominant position.