In late June 2023, Europe’s highest court confirmed in a hotly anticipated judgment involving leading Portuguese beer and beverage producer Super Bock Bebidas that resale price maintenance (RPM)—namely the vertical fixing of...more
European antitrust regulators have shown a continued focus on scrutinizing manufacturers’ engagement with their distributors. The anticompetitive practices that have attracted the highest financial penalties primarily relate...more
On 27 January 2021, the French competition authority (Autorité de la concurrence or ADC) adopted a decision accepting commitments from the building block producer Lego France (Lego) to amend its discount policy. The ADC...more
The events of 2020 have caused many brands to re-evaluate whether they are fully utilizing the internet as a tool to reach out to consumers with many enhancing and upgrading their own brand websites. Some brands are now also...more
Two recent developments in the European competition enforcement sphere provide a warning for brands when engaging with their retailers with whom they compete and when using price monitoring tools to monitor the third party...more
It is increasingly common for brands to track the prices of their products online using electronic price monitoring tools. While the practice itself is unlikely to attract antitrust risk, as we have previously reported, in...more
The COVID-19 outbreak is affecting businesses in the European Union (“EU”) in many different ways. Recognizing the scale of the impact, the Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition,...more
Recent years have seen a surge in enforcement activity with national and supra-national antitrust regulators investigating and fining suppliers and manufacturers for the practice of imposing fixed or minimum resale prices and...more
Stakeholder submissions to the European Commission (Commission) on the EU competition rules governing distribution practices reveal widespread concern that the current framework is inadequate to meet the growing e-commerce...more
In an ever-growing online retail environment, brand owners are increasingly becoming concerned with tracking their brand’s online presence and ensuring consumers' experience of their brand continues to be positive....more
On 8 November 2018, the European Commission published a “Roadmap” inviting manufacturers and other interested market participants to provide feedback on the Vertical Agreements Block Exemption Regulation (the “Block...more
On 24 July 2018, in four separate decisions, the European Commission (“Commission”) levied fines totalling EUR 111 million on four well-known manufacturers of consumer electronic products for imposing fixed or minimum resale...more
8/8/2018
/ Anti-Monopoly ,
Australia ,
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) ,
CCA ,
China ,
Competition ,
EU ,
European Commission ,
Resale Pricing ,
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) ,
UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)
This alert considers two interesting recent developments relevant to manufacturers distributing their products through a selective distribution system in European territories....more