Biedronka & Transport Companies Fined $150 Million Over Labor Market Collusion

Key Takeaways

• More Than $150 Million in Fines: Poland’s UOKiK imposed approximately $150.3 million (PLN 571.96 million) in penalties on the company behind Biedronka, 29 transport companies and eight individuals over a no-poach arrangement involving truck drivers.
• Drivers Faced Restrictions on Changing Jobs: Transport companies serving Biedronka distribution centers agreed not to compete for one another’s drivers, with workers potentially facing waiting periods of several months before they could work for another carrier at the same center.
• Biedronka Coordinated the Arrangement: UOKiK found that the supermarket chain coordinated and enforced the arrangement, including through its control over drivers’ access to distribution centers.
• Thousands of Drivers May Have Been Affected: The arrangement ran from June 2017 until at least February 2024 and may have resulted in less favorable employment conditions for several thousand drivers.
• Competition for Wages Was Restricted: UOKiK said the arrangement may have reduced upward pressure on wages by limiting carriers’ need to compete for drivers through better pay and employment conditions.

Deep Dive

For nearly seven years, transport companies serving the Polish supermarket chain agreed not to compete with one another for drivers, according to Poland’s Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, or UOKiK. Moving from one participating carrier to another could require the permission of the employer the driver was trying to leave. Without it, the driver could be kept out of the distribution center for months.

UOKiK has now imposed approximately $150.3 million (PLN 571.96 million) in fines over the arrangement, including approximately $138.1 million (PLN 525.54 million) against the company behind Biedronka. Twenty-nine transport companies and eight individuals were also penalized.

The arrangement lasted from June 2017 until at least February 2024, when UOKiK searched company premises as part of its investigation. The authority said Biedronka did considerably more than stand by while its carriers made their own arrangements. It organized the collusion, enforced its terms and served as an intermediary for information passing between the transport companies.

The decision was submitted to the European Commission for an opinion. According to UOKiK, the Commission agreed with its assessment that the arrangement restricted competition.

“Employees have the right to seek better pay and working conditions,” UOKiK President Tomasz Chróstny said. “Collusion that deprives employees of this right undermines the fundamental principles of fair competition.”

A Waiting Period for Changing Jobs

Carriers working at Biedronka distribution centers agreed not to hire drivers from other companies participating in the scheme. A driver who wanted to move between them needed the consent of the existing employer. Without that consent, the driver could be barred from working for another carrier at the same distribution center until a waiting period expired.

Those waiting periods varied by distribution center and could last several months. In practical terms, UOKiK said, they made hiring another carrier’s driver virtually uneconomical. A transport company might have a job for the driver, but it could not put that person to work at the relevant Biedronka facility.

Biedronka had the means to make the arrangement stick. The supermarket chain controlled access to its distribution centers and, according to UOKiK, prevented drivers who switched employers in breach of the agreement from entering them.

The effect was to take something ordinary out of the labor market: the possibility that one employer might lure away another’s worker with a better offer.

UOKiK said several thousand drivers may have faced less favorable employment conditions over the life of the arrangement. By reducing the danger that a carrier would lose drivers to a competitor, the agreement may also have weakened the pressure to raise wages. That mattered in a market where qualified drivers were already scarce and companies were struggling to recruit and retain them.

The evidence collected by the regulator offers an unusually plain account of what the companies were worried about.

One carrier complained to Biedronka about drivers moving between companies at the same distribution center, noting that the market for drivers was already difficult. In 2022, another asked for a waiting period to be imposed on a driver, warning that failure to follow established rules would create what it called “unhealthy” competition among the carriers.

A message from 2021 was more revealing still. One carrier complained of a “rat race” among drivers over which company would pay more and worried about carriers within Biedronka outbidding one another. What the carrier described as a problem is ordinarily one of the basic mechanisms of a competitive labor market.

Biedronka’s Role

UOKiK found that Biedronka sat at the center of the arrangement. The supermarket chain organized it, enforced the rules and facilitated the exchange of information between carriers. Its control over access to the distribution centers gave those rules force. A driver who ignored them could find that changing employers did not change where he was permitted to work.

There was also an economic interest for Biedronka itself. If transport companies did not have to bid against one another for drivers, there was less pressure for wages to rise. UOKiK found that this could, in turn, reduce pressure on the rates carriers charged Biedronka for transportation services.

The regulator also said internal company documents showed that this kind of conduct could violate the law. Nevertheless, according to UOKiK, the company did not voluntarily end the practice and knowingly allowed it to continue at least until the authority carried out its search.

That search came after UOKiK opened a preliminary labor-market investigation in 2024. Officials were examining whether transport companies serving supermarket distribution centers had agreed not to compete for drivers. UOKiK later brought formal charges against the company behind Biedronka, transport companies and eight managers and business owners.

More Than $150 Million in Fines

The company behind Biedronka accounts for the overwhelming majority of the approximately $150.3 million (PLN 571.96 million) in penalties imposed over the arrangement. Its approximately $138.1 million (PLN 525.54 million) fine represents more than 90% of the total.

Eight individuals whom UOKiK found directly responsible for the prohibited arrangements were fined as well. They were owners, partners or managers associated with Euro Finannce, EF Transport, Trans-GP, Rolko, Solus, P.P.H.U. Zadroga, Rasz, Nowa Logistic and Sławomir Sajdak.

One carrier, Międzynarodowy i Krajowy Przewóz Towarów Kazimierz Olszański, sought leniency and provided UOKiK with information about how the arrangement worked. It came forward only after proceedings had begun, however, by which point the authority said it had already collected a substantial body of evidence. That was too late for complete immunity. UOKiK instead cut the carrier’s fine in half, to more than approximately $43,800 (PLN 166,600).

The case belongs to a part of competition enforcement that can be less conspicuous than price-fixing or agreements to divide customers, but its logic is much the same. Employers compete for labor as businesses compete for customers. Pay is one of the prices in that market. UOKiK has made labor-market collusion an explicit enforcement concern in recent years, warning employers that no-poach agreements can suppress salaries or prevent wages from rising as quickly as they would under normal competition.

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