Top brewers investigated over price-fixing allegations

India’s anti-trust watchdog raided the offices of Heineken-controlled United Breweries, Carlsberg and AB-InBev on 11 October 2018 as part of an investigation of price-fixing allegations, Reuters news agency reported.

United Breweries is India’s major brewer with a market share in excess of 50 percent. AB-InBev is estimated to control a quarter followed by Carlsberg at 17 percent.

As is often the case, the watchdog was tipped off by one of the three companies after it filed a leniency application with the regulator, revealing details of the alleged price fixing. Who could it have been, we wonder?

The regulator’s leniency programme is a type of whistleblower protection offered to cartel members.

India’s beer market is heavily regulated – to such an extent that the country’s state governments generally decide the price of beer by adding excise duties, taxes and retail profit on the minimum ex-brewery price declared by the companies.

Allegedly, the three companies have formed a cartel and manipulated the ex-brewery price.

Under India’s Competition Act, the anti-trust watchdog has the power to impose fines up to three times the profit made in each year concerned, or 10 percent of annual revenue, whichever is higher.