Rentsch denies act of revenge

Publishers The investigations by the Competition Commission against Vogt-Schild have been ongoing since the summer. It is true that the Competition Commission (ComCo) is taking a closer look at the Board of Directors of Vogt-Schild/Habegger (VS/H), as the SonntagsZeitung (SoZ) wrote. It is also correct that the ComCo is carrying out investigations into the role of Chairman of the Board Fritz Schuhmacher, who is also Vice-Chairman of both PubliGroupe and Basler Zeitung Medien. This was confirmed by Competition Commission spokesman Patrik Ducrey, who quickly raised the suspicion in the industry that Rudolf Rentsch, who was removed as director and chairman of the board of VS/H in mid-2003, now wanted to blacken Schuhmacher and VS/H with the Competition Commission. When asked about this by Werbewoche, Rentsch said that he would refrain from acts of revenge and power games - "in the interests of the company and the people who work there". The fact is that he was asked by the Competition Commission some time ago to make a statement on the events at VS/H and their background. Among other things, he also pointed out "Schuhmacher's obvious conflicts of interest". "However, that was my only contact with the ComCo in this matter, and I have not heard anything more from them since then," said Rentsch.
Competition Commission spokesman Patrik Ducrey emphasizes that these are clarifications and not formal proceedings, let alone an investigation. What's more, the COMCO investigations did not just start recently, as the SoZ article suggests. Ducrey: "We already became active last summer following a newspaper article and obtained various opinions." But because of the investigations into Espace Media, 20 Minuten and Bund, the matter was left unresolved. "But it is still ongoing," says Ducrey. In the meantime, no new information has been received.
Markus Knöpfli