Dutch Court to quantify damages Heineken must pay Greek MTB

The Netherlands | In this seemingly never-ending story, final proceedings began at the Amsterdam District Court to determine the amount in compensation which Heineken must pay to Macedonian Thrace Brewery (MTB) for the proven anti-competitive conduct of Heineken’s Greek subsidiary, Athenian Brewery.

The case has been making its way through the courts since 2015, when Greece’s competition regulator fined Athenian Brewery EUR 31.5 million for its anti-competitive practices between 1998 and 2014. But MTB would not leave it at that. It has since employed all legal options to also hold Heineken responsible for the conduct of its Greek subsidiary, since they constitute a single economic undertaking that infringed EU competition law.

The Amsterdam hearing on 11 November followed nearly a decade of legal wrangling and numerous attempts by Heineken to get the case thrown out. But a succession of rulings over the past 18 months have confirmed Heineken's liability and established that MTB has the right to pursue redress before the Dutch courts.

The secret formula for damages

MTB is seeking more than EUR 180 million (USD 210 million) from Heineken, with interest to date already amounting to roughly half the claim's value and still accruing. A final ruling on the amount Heineken will have to pay is expected in the first half of 2026, as the court seems very eager to move things forward.

Heineken faces similar claims from other competitors, most notably Carlsberg, which is seeking more than EUR 300 million in a near-identical action also arising from anti-competitive practices in the Greek market.
In 2014, Athenian Brewery's market share in Greece was approximately 50 percent, marking a significant drop from 73 percent in 2000. This made it the largest brewery at that time, ahead of Carlsberg’s Olympic Brewery, which held a 29 percent market share after the merger with Mythos Brewery.