The Spanish exhibitors'federation has called for the creation of a commission to ensure that thelandmark ruling handed down last week against five multinational distributors accusedof anti-competitive practices gets carried out.

In last week's decision bySpain's Anti-Trust Court, Disney/Buena Vista, Sony Pictures, Hispano Fox, UIPand Warner Sogefilms were fined $3m (Euros 2.4m) each for price fixing andother anti-competitive practices in Spain.

Now the exhibitors'federation FECE, which originally filed the suit in 2003, is askingfor the creation of an 'Interterritorial and Interministerial Commission'to see that the fines get paid and the practices are stopped.

FECE is also calling on theMinistry of Culture and its Film Institute (ICAA) to take on a greater watchdogrole over the sector, and is hoping to reopen talks on policies that itconsiders to compromise the free market, such as the screen quota.

The studios were charged bythe court with coordinating premiere dates and fixing rental fees and other conditionswhich allowed them to 'extract extraordinary benefits they could notobtain in an environment of real competition,' the ruling said.

The Spanish distributors'federation was also fined $1.1m (Euros 900,000) for acting as intermediaryproviding key information through its databases.

Despite having calculatedthe economic effects on exhibitors as exponentially higher than the fines, FECEcalled the ruling 'an historic resolution which has established a nationaland international precedent' and suggested it could have 'anexpansive effect.'