European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, during a press conference in Brussels, May 23, 2024 (AFP/Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD)
The American biscuit and chocolate giant Mondelez, owner of famous brands such as Lu, Oreo, Milka and Toblerone, was fined 337.5 million euros on Thursday for illegally inflating its prices by restricting competition in the EU.
This giant fine, the ninth heaviest ever imposed by the European Union for anti-competitive practices, comes at a time when food price inflation is a major concern for households.
Companies are regularly singled out for having excessively increased their margins while consumer prices have soared for two years, in the wake of the war in Ukraine.
At the end of an investigation opened in January 2021, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager stressed that the American multinational had “prevented European retailers from purchasing the group’s products in EU countries where prices are lower “.
This is an attack on one of the essential principles of the European project: the free movement of goods within the single market.
“This allowed Mondelez to maintain high prices to the detriment of consumers,” Ms. Vestager underlined during a press conference.
The group is also accused of having abused its dominant position in the chocolate bar market in certain countries to limit imports from other EU countries with lower prices.
The Mondelez group owns many well-known brands such as Côte d’Or, Milka, Oreo, Ritz, Toblerone and TUC (AFP/Archives/Fabrice COFFRINI)
Mondelez is, for example, accused of having withdrawn chocolate bars from its Côte d’Or brand in the Netherlands in order to prevent them from being resold in Belgium where they were sold in larger quantities and at higher prices.
Mondelez also prevented a wholesaler from buying its chocolates in Germany, where they are cheaper, for four years to resell them elsewhere in the EU. The group thus avoided downward pressure on these prices.
– “High inflation” –
According to Brussels, Mondelez “impeded cross-border trade in chocolates, biscuits and coffee between member states, in violation of EU competition rules” through illegal agreements.
Within the EU, prices for the same product can vary by 10% to 40% depending on the country, explained Ms. Vestager. “Cross-border trade within the internal market can lower prices. This is particularly important in times of high inflation,” she stressed.
The agri-food multinational mentioned in a press release “isolated incidents, which occurred in the past and most of which had stopped well before the Commission’s investigation”. The alleged facts “relate to a very limited part of Mondelez’s European activity” and “this historical case is not representative of who we are and our strong culture of respect for the rules”, affirmed the company .
Created from the spin-off of Kraft Foods in 2012, Mondelez, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, owns many well-known brands such as Milka, Oreo, Ritz, Toblerone and TUC.
Last year, the group recorded global sales up 14% to 36 billion dollars (33 billion euros). It generated a net profit of 4.96 billion dollars (4.57 billion EUR).
In a similar case of anti-competitive practices, the Belgian-Brazilian brewer AB InBev, world number one in the sector, was fined 200 million euros by the European Commission in May 2019.
© 2024 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends using the buttons below.
