The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation on Thursday into allegations of price-fixing by Mondelez, the global confectioner of major snack brands, including Cadbury, Oreo and Toblerone.
“We are opening a formal investigation to see whether Mondelēz, a key producer of these products, might have restricted free competition in the markets concerned by implementing various practices hindering trade flows, ultimately leading to higher prices for consumers,” EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
The EU alleges that the global giant has schemed to limit the sales of its iconic products from one European country to the other in an infringement of the bloc’s single market rules.
Responding to the announcement, a spokesperson for the company said: “We learnt about the European Commission’s announcement that it has opened a formal investigation into Mondelēz International’s practices related to the cross-border supply of products within the European Economic Area. We will work constructively with the European Commission as it conducts its review.”
The Commission said it suspected Mondelez had used contracts and unilateral practices to ban traders from making its products available to other countries at potentially cheaper prices, or the so-called ‘parallel trade’.
The suspicions led EU investigators to carry out a series of raids in Mondelez offices across Europe in November 2019.
AB InBev was recently convicted of using similar methods by ensuring that cheaper beer from the Netherlands and France could not be sold in Belgium.
The world’s biggest brewery group was fined €200 million (£177m) for the practices, which included changing the design and size of beer cans to make them unavailable for cross-border sales.
(With AFP inputs)
To use this website you must be aged 18 years or over. Please verify your age before entering the site.
