{"id":20066,"date":"2020-09-30T13:34:03","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T11:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/actualites\/entente-illicite-prix\/"},"modified":"2020-09-30T13:34:03","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T11:34:03","slug":"entente-illicite-prix","status":"publish","type":"actualites","link":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/actualites\/entente-illicite-prix\/","title":{"rendered":"Netherlands: Tobacco industry convicted of illegal price fixing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>In the Netherlands, the Dutch Competition Authority (ACM) fined the tobacco industry \u20ac82 million in May 2020 for attempting to distort market rules through an illegal price agreement. However, the decision was only announced on Tuesday, September 29, after three manufacturers tried to prevent its publication in court. <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The allegations against the industry date back to the period between 2008 and 2011. According to the ACM, &quot;manufacturers received information from wholesalers on the consumer prices of their competitors&#039; cigarette packs before these tariffs came into effect. They were then able to align their prices with those of their competitors.&quot; The Dutch authority points out that the cigarette manufacturers were aware that they were in direct violation of competition rules.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Four tobacco manufacturers are affected by the ACM&#039;s decision. British American Tobacco (BAT) must pay the largest fine (\u20ac31 million). Philip Morris Netherlands is required to pay \u20ac27.5 million. Japan Tobacco International Company Netherlands and Van Nelle Tabak Nederland are fined over \u20ac13 million and over \u20ac10 million, respectively. According to the competition authority, each of these companies sought to challenge the legitimacy of the fine.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>A classic oligopolistic operation on prices<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These price agreements are a recurring practice in the tobacco industry, which operates like a real oligopoly. In France in particular, the Competition Authority had also carried out searches and seizures at cigarette manufacturers suspected of anti-competitive practices. Similarly, in May 2020, the Swiss Federal Administrative Court forced the customs department to provide the OxySuisse association with information on the sales prices of different cigarette brands for 2014 and 2015, following suspicion of price collusion between the major companies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Keywords: Illicit agreement, price<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/\">\u00a9Generation Without Tobacco<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source : <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lesoir.be\/328153\/article\/2020-09-29\/pays-bas-4-fabricants-de-tabac-ecopent-de-82-millions-damende-pour-entente-sur\">Netherlands: 4 tobacco manufacturers fined 82 million for price fixing<\/a><\/em>, Le Soir, 09\/29\/2020, (accessed 09\/30\/2020)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #999999;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #999999;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cnct.fr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Committee Against Smoking |<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tobacco industry fined \u20ac82 million for illegal tobacco price fixing<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":19869,"template":"","tags":[],"thematique":[538],"class_list":["post-20066","actualites","type-actualites","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","thematique-marches-paralleles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites\/20066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/actualites"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites\/20066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20066"},{"taxonomy":"thematique","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematique?post=20066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}