By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat
Grab, the online ride-hailing transport network company, has been fined a second time by the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) for its failure to submit accurate, sufficient, consistent, and timely data in violation of its voluntary commitment to address competition issues after it acquired major rival Uber.
(REUTERS|MANILA BULLETIN)
PCC Chairman Antonio M. Balisacan said Grab was slapped P6.5 million last Tuesday after the commission reviewed its commitments from August to November 10, 2018.
Grab has five days to submit its comment.
When Grab acquired Uber, it offered to adhere to a set of price and service-quality commitments through quarterly monitoring conducted by an independent monitoring trustee.
The commitments were designed to address the commission’s concerns about Grab’s pricing strategy, as well as its incentives to maintain service quality, in the absence of a significant competitive pressure in the market.
PCC said it cannot enforce the commitments if Grab does not submit correct, sufficient, consistent, and timely data.
“We remain steadfast in binding Grab to its commitments, as these are meant to address the concerns of market competition and the ride-hailing public,” Balisacan said.
PCC Commissioner Johannes Benjamin R. Bernabe said Grab’s violation was largely related on its pricing commitment. The pricing data required covers pre and post-acquisition of Uber by Grab.
Bernabe said the monitoring teams had a number of interactions with Grab, which also tried at some point to come up with data that the commission still found wanting.
With no solid data to analyze, PCC said it cannot determine if the riding public has been put at a disadvantage.
Specific violations include failure to submit historical data on pricing to allow PCC to determine the deviation from pre to post-merger. Bernabe noted of Grab’s “reverse engineering” or “human intervention” in coming up with the data rather than showing data captured electronically.
Last December, PCC imposed a P16 million fine on Grab for not complying with interim measures after taking over Uber.
PCC Commissioner Amabelle C. Asuncion explained that the new penalty is separate from the first fine.
Grab has 45 days to pay the fine. Both Bernabe and Asuncion said they have not yet seen the TNC payment for the first offense although the TNC has already filed an appeal.
Balisacan also warned that “continous violation has a cost.”