The manner in which the National Fiscal Administration Agency (ANAF) proposed a protocol to fight contraband on the cigarette market has caused cracks to appear in the monolith-like structure of the three major players on the market, Philip Morris, BAT and JTI. Philip Morris and BAT are now opposing JTI for the first time. The protocol entails the exchange of information and reports about the volume of sales on the domestic market. "I cannot reach any kind of agreement with the ANAF officials because no proposition was made to us. Philip Morris and BAT representatives were not notified about this protocol. There are just too many coincidences about the manner in which it was proposed, with an ANAF official team coming for an inspection right when the protocol was being proposed publicly, for example. This is disturbing. BAT is the largest taxpayer in Prahova county, where we account for 40% of the authorities'' budget," says Adrian Popa, corporate affairs director of BAT Romania. Gilda Lazar, who is Popa''s counterpart at JTI, says the ANAF proposal was actually only a draft and that JTI had also been subjected to an inspection. "We welcome the authorities'' intention and we were also inspected the following day after the other two companies were controlled. I believe this is a communication problem and I don''t think the inspectors meant any harm, though possibly they were not properly coordinated. We were not too happy with the inspection, either, but that''s that." ANAF began its national inspections with a view to combating tax evasion in the form of cigarette smuggling and counterfeiting for which the black market is estimated at 300-400 million euros. ZF
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