There has been an enhanced focus on personal fines in competition law cases in Denmark. It is now common that fines are not only issued to companies but also individuals when the Danish Competition Act is violated – and the first prison sentence may not be far away.
Today it was published that Opel Danmark A/S has accepted a fine of DKK 8.25 million on 13 October 2016 for an infringement of section 6 of the Danish Competition Act.
The case concerns an anti-competitive vertical agreement between Opel and their independent dealers. In the period from 2010 to 2014, Opel has set minimum retail prices for the dealers’ sale of used Opel leasing, rental and demo cars. Consequently, Opel has prevented the distributors from competing on price for sale of these cars, which is a breach of section 6 of the Danish Competition Act.
In the determination of the fine it has been a mitigation circumstance that Opel has given the authorities information about the infringement and that Opel has documented that an extensive compliance program has been implemented.
Opel has decided to plead guilty and accept a fine notice from the Danish Public Prosecutor for Serious Financial Crime. Consequently, the case has been settled without a trail.
The German Competition Authority has passed decisions in new cases in their enquiry into the food retail sector. The retailers has been fined for vertical price agreements with suppliers of beer, confectionery products and coffee. The product brands include Beck’s, Franziskaner, Hasseröder, Haribo and Melitta.
The decisions are part of a larger investigation, where many well-known retailers have been sanctioned for vertical price maintenance on shop prices of a wide variety of products.
The German Competition Authorities started the investigation with dawn raids back in January 2010.