According to national legislation, all elevators in Greece shall comply with specific technical specifications and be registered in the Elevator Inventory Register, which has been kept electronically since August 2025. The inventory shall be completed within four months of the Register's launch and may be carried out by the maintenance technician or installer responsible for each elevator.
The Hellenic Competition Commission received information concerning excessive charging of consumers and raising suspicions of concerted practices in offers for the upgrading and maintenance of elevators in certain regions of Greece. In some cases, pressure is allegedly being exerted on property owners urging them to accept transaction terms, invoking the imminent expiry of the compliance deadline and pointing out the threat of a fine.
The Panhellenic Federation of Elevator Manufacturers, Installation and Maintenance Experts issued a communication stating, inter alia "our Federation, having received complaints from citizens, will respond vigorously and decisively, reporting to any competent public authority any opportunists and profiteers seeking to obtain an economic benefit to the detriment of society as a whole by circumventing the law."
The Hellenic Competition Commission states that:
Undertakings must address the prevailing economic conditions in the sector of their activity by pursuing an autonomous commercial policy independently of each other and by means that do not distort or restrict free competition. The final price of each undertaking's products and services must reflect its economic capacity and business choices in terms of cost management. Therefore, elevator installation, maintenance and upgrading services must be priced independently by each professional and on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the specific features of each elevator and the possibility of each professional to partially absorb the cost, for example by reducing his profit margin.
Any agreement or concerted practice between professionals in the sector, as well as any intervention by professional bodies/associations, in any manner and to any extent and degree, which has as its object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition on the Greek territory, and in particular those consisting in the direct or indirect price fixing for the provision of services or any agreement on other trading conditions, or a concerted price increase or the maintenance of profits or the passing on of economic burdens to consumers, shall be deemed as hard-core infringements of national and EU competition law in accordance with Article 1 of Law 3959/2011 and Article 101 TFEU. Any breach of these rules is subject to substantial administrative fines and criminal penalties. In addition, any recidivism of offenders, i.e. previous findings of infringement of competition rules, may constitute an aggravating circumstance entailing a doubling of the fine.
The market for the installation and maintenance of elevators has been the subject-matter of investigations and decisions by the Hellenic Competition Commission (see HCC Decisions 750/2021 and 758/2021), which imposed a fine for indirect price fixing and advertising ban, as well as a series of remedies/behavioural measures to inform installers/maintenance technicians and consumers and to strengthen competition in the elevator installation and maintenance market.
In view of the possible occurrence of distortions, and in order to ensure compliance by professionals and professional bodies/associations in the sector with competition rules, the HCC:
A. Calls on the Panhellenic Federation of Elevator Manufacturers, Installation and Maintenance Experts to inform, without delay, its members by any appropriate means of their obligations and the relevant penalties, and to inform the HCC of the relevant measures it has taken to comply with the above.
B. Invites any interested party which has any relevant information as well as the Federation to report to the Hellenic Competition Commission any anti-competitive practices falling within its remit, by name or anonymously through the HCC’s anonymous reporting system (whistleblowing). To the extent that undertakings, associations of undertakings or natural persons have been engaged in possible anti-competitive practices, they may be eligible for the HCC's Leniency Programme, which may lead to full or partial immunity from administrative fines or a reduction thereof, and the elimination of criminal liability or a reduced penalty for the natural persons responsible.