FRANCE FINE

BY KEITH NUTHALLTHE EUROPEAN Commission has today (29-9) fined Groupe Danone/Kronenbourg Euro 1.5 million and Heineken Euro 1 million for striking an anti-competitive agreement in the French hotel, restaurant and café markets for beer. Their agreement, concluded the Commission, was never implemented, but Brussels has imposed fines anyway. The cartel-like deal followed an aggressive acquisition struggle where both breweries bought up as many wholesalers as they could, pushing up the price of these businesses. A Commission statement today quoted a 1996 Heineken ...


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