Published: Thursday, May 23, 2024
The European Commission fined food company Mondelez $366 million for blocking sales of Oreos and other snack brands between EU member countries, said the executive arm of the EU on Thursday.
Mondelez is the owner of Cadbury, Toblerone and Oreo cookies as well as Triscuit crackers, Perfect Snacks nutrition bar and Triscuit crackers.
According to the Commission, Mondelez avoided this cross-border trading because it could have led to lower prices. The Commission said that this hurt consumers, who ended up paying more money for coffee, chocolate and biscuits.
It said that “Such illegal practice allowed Mondelez continue to charge more for its products, ultimately to the detriment to consumers in the EU.”
The Chicago-based candy-and-snack company violated EU competition laws “by engaging anticompetitive arrangements or concerted practice aimed at limiting cross-border trading of various coffee, chocolate and biscuit products,” said the Commission. “And by abusing their dominant position on certain national markets in the sale of chocolate tablet.”
Margrethe Vestager said that the case concerned the cost of groceries. This is an important issue for Europeans in a period of high inflation.
Vestager stated that “it is also about the core of the European Project: the free flow of goods on the single market.”
According to the EU executive branch, this company engaged in 22 anticompetitive or concerted agreements.
EU said that one agreement ordered Mondelez customers to charge higher prices for exports than domestic sales. The Commission also stated that Mondelez prohibited ten exclusive distributors in the bloc of 27 nations from responding to sale requests by customers in other EU member states without prior approval from the company.