The Lithuanian Competition Authority fines a professional association of real estate brokers and its members €969B for concluding no-poach and market sharing agreements (LAREA)

REAL ESTATE AGENCIES AGREED NOT TO COMPETE FOR CLIENTS AND EMPLOYEES* The Lithuanian competition authority Konkurencijos taryba has established that the Lithuanian Association of Real Estate Agencies (LAREA) and its 39 members agreed not to solicit each other's clients and brokers, and thus restricted competition. The infringement of the Law on Competition and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union resulted in a total of EUR 969,060 in fines. Konkurencijos taryba found that the Code of Ethics, which was adopted by the members of the LAREA in 2015, included a provision under which real estate specialists had to avoid direct contact with the brokers’ clients of other agencies belonging to the association. By this provision the members of the LAREA sought to avoid competition