Brewers fined EUR 106 million for price fixing
The Federal Cartel Office has fined five German brewers a total of EUR 106.5 million for illegal price fixing. The group of convicts include national brewers Bitburger, Krombacher, Veltins, Warsteiner and the regional brewer Barre.
This was announced by the Federal Cartel Office on 13 January 2013.
The brewers had agreed on higher prices for draught beer and bottled beer in 2006 and 2008. It amounted to EUR 5 to EUR 7 per hl of draft beer and EUR 1 for a crate of 10 litres beer.
AB-InBev’s German unit will go scotch-free as it had turned whistleblower.
The investigations into the shenanigans of two other major brewers are on-going. Still under investigation are four more regional brewers from North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s major beer producing state, and their regional brewers’ association over their involvement in the cartel.
The fines are preliminary as the convicted brewers have the right to appeal. A local court in Düsseldorf will issue a final verdict.
The fines may seem steep but pale in comparison to the penalisation of Dutch brewers, including Heineken and Grolsch, of a total of EUR 273.7 million in 2007 by European regulators for price fixing in the Netherlands in the late 1990s. Heineken and Grolsch appealed against the verdict, but in December 2012 the European Union’s highest court finally upheld the fines.
As in Germany now, AB-InBev then was also accused of violating EU laws. However, it escaped a fine after providing key information about the infractions.
