The Austrian Cartel Court fined De’Longhi-Kenwood with EUR 650.000 for fixing prices with retailers, restricting cross-border trade and introducing a full blown online-distribution-prohibition.
In the years 2006-2015 staff of De’Longhi-Kenwood observed the market multiple-times during the week and pressured retailers through immediate contacts (via email or telephone conversations) when price-discrepancies from the established minimum-prices were detected. To ensure alignment with the “European minimum pricing system” the following methods were employed: (i) obligation for the traders not to be listed in online price-search machines, (ii) stop of supply (iii) threat to stop promotion rebates/subsidies.
With this decision the Austrian Cartel Court has now decided in 11 cases against companies that restricted online-distribution and imposed a fine of total EUR 7.724.000 against these companies.
Source: ACC
(Elisabeth König)
Author: Claudio Lombardi
http://clombardi Claudio Lombardi is editor-in-chief of the Antitrust Observatory. He is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and at the Europa-Kolleg Institute for European Integration, Hamburg. Claudio is also a visiting lecturer at the International University College of Turin (IUC). Before joining the Max-Planck, Claudio was a research fellow at the Higher School of Economics and Skolkovo Institute for Law and Development, Moscow, where he worked, with Prof. Ioannis Lianos (UCL), on a project on competition law and policy in the global food value chain, involving the cooperation of numerous national and international institutions. Prior to joining the Institute, he was a PhD student (competition law) and tutor (in private law) at the University of Trento and a Max-Planck Institute guest researcher (MPRIV – Hamburg). Claudio was also awarded a DAAD Grant of the Europa-Kolleg Institute of Hamburg in 2013 and an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship for doctoral researchers in 2012.
You can write him at clombardi27 at gmail.com
The Austrian Cartel Court fined De’Longhi-Kenwood with EUR 650.000 for fixing prices with retailers, restricting cross-border trade and introducing a full blown online-distribution-prohibition.
