A former director of a Dublin car company has been handed a 15-month suspended prison sentence and fined a total of €160,000 for price-fixing.
In the Central Criminal Court in Dublin today, Mr Justice Liam McKechnie told that court that it was “with great reluctance” he suspended the sentence and warned that custodial prison sentences would be handed down in future for such offences.
James Bursey (64) was director of Bursey Peppard Motors Limited, which traded at St Agnes Road, Crumlin Cross, Dublin 12, until October 2008.
Bursey and the company pleaded guilty in March to four charges of entering into and implementing agreements with other Leinster car dealers to fix prices of Citroen vehicles.
Bursey pleaded guilty to two counts of, as director of a company, authorizing it to enter into and to implement an agreement with other undertakings to prevent, restrict and distort competition by directly or indirectly fixing prices of Citroen cars within the province of Leinster on dates between July 8th, 1996 and June 30th, 2002, contrary to section four of the 1991 Act and section two of the 1996 Act.
He also pleaded guilty to two similar charges on behalf of the company.
Mr Justice McKechnie sentenced Bursey to 15 months imprisonment, suspended for five years, for the two offences to which he pleaded guilty and also fined him a total of €80,000. The judge also fined the company a total of €80,000.
Thomas Fitzpatrick, an officer with the Competition Authority, told the court earlier this week that Bursey was a member of the Citroen Dealers’ Association (CDA) which had its first meeting in April 1995 and operated in the Leinster region until 2004.
Members of the CDA agreed to implement a scheme in which prices were set by the organisation in relation to maximum discounts from the recommended retail price, delivery charges, accessory prices, trade in values and export prices. These agreed minimum prices were printed up and circulated to members by the secretary of the CDA.
The CDA set monetary penalties for breaches of the agreement and hired “secret shoppers” to go into dealerships and check that members were sticking to the agreement.
Bursey attended the initial meeting of the CDA in April 1995 and was appointed treasurer, a post he held for two years, and was president of the CDA for the year spanning 2003 and 2004.
Mr Fitzpatrick told the court that the Competition Authority examined the minutes of 57 CDA meetings and that Bursey was a “regular attender” and a “vocal contributor”.
Bursey Peppard Ltd had a turnover of nearly €6.2 million for a nine-month period in 2006 and nearly €3.2 million in 2007 and 2008. The company ceased trading in October 2008, with losses of over €500,000.
This case is the third to be dealt with by the Central Criminal Court. Under the Competition Act of 2002 all such cases are now heard at the Central Criminal Court and the maximum penalties are five years imprisonment and/or a maximum fine of €4 million.