Manila, Philippines – The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) has slapped Grab Philippines a new ₱9m fine (~US$160k) amidst delays in its refund to customers. This is more than three years after the PCC first ordered the reimbursement to Grab.
The fine is composed of a ₱6m fine where PCC said Grab violated three separate commission orders for the company to return a combined ₱25.45m to its customers. The other ₱3m fine is in regards to Grab providing incorrect and misleading information in the compliance reports that the company submitted with respect to the refund orders.
It should be recalled that the PCC penalised Grab a total of ₱63.7 million since 2018 for violations of its price and service quality commitments. It was in late 2019 when the Commission imposed on Grab the penalty to return a portion of its commissions to Grab’s passengers for violating its price monitoring commitment.
It has since ordered Grab to issue refunds in the amounts of ₱5.05m in November 2019, ₱14.15m in December 2019, and ₱6.25m in October 2020.
Moreover, the PCC also ordered Grab PH to pay back ₱19.3m to its users back in March 2022. In response, Grab PH stated back then that they have disbursed the full administrative fee in a manner consistent with the agreed mechanics with the PCC.
The PCC has also directed Grab to put in place an alternative refund mechanism that would allow its customers to claim remaining refunds, barring which the company was ordered to convey the amount to PCC for remittance to the National Treasury. To ensure higher take-up of the refund, the PCC instructed Grab to exhaust different platforms to inform customers about the pending reimbursement.
