Danish Producer Of Kids-and Baby Gear Fined 8.000.000 DKK For Resale Price Maintenance

• Published date: 26 April 2022
• Subject Matter: orporate/Commercial Law, Anti-trust/Competition Law, Corporate and Company Law, Antitrust, EU Competition
• Law Firm: Bird & Bird
• Author: Mr Frederik Haugsted and Morten Nissen

A Danish company that produces baby sleeping bags and car seats (Company) has admitted to infringing the prohibition against resale price maintenance for a period of 5 years to the Danish Competition and Consumer Agency. As a result, the Company was ordered to pay a fine of DKK 8.000.000 (EUR 1.067.000) by the Danish Competition Council.

The fine and penalty notice came after the Company imposed minimum resale prices on its distributors. In addition to enforcing a recommended retail price, the Company limited its distributors' options to grant rebates and restricted the online sales for certain product categories from the distributors' web shops.

Due to the cross-border character of the infringement, the Danish Competition Council considered the applicability of the "NAAT-rule" (No Appreciable Affectation of Trade) from the Commission's Guidelines (2004/C 101/07). However, as the market shares of the parties exceeded 5 per cent, the agreement was not able to fulfil the cumulative conditions of not being capable of appreciably affecting trade between Member States. Consequently the...