On the 20th May 2008, the European Commission has published a summary of the Commission Decision relating an infrigement within the Dutch beer markeyt by six main players. These are InBev NV, InBev Nederland NV, Heineken NV, Heineken Nederland BV, Koninklijke Grolsch NV and Bavaria NV.

The above six legal entities belonging to four brewery undertakings have participated in a single and continuous infringement between 27 February 1996 and 3 November 1999 on the market for beer in the Netherlands. The infringements committed by the addressees were considered as ‘very serious’ due to their nature.

The infringement consisted in a complex of agreements and/or concerted practices the object of which was to restrict competition within the common market, in particular by:

1. Coordinating prices and price increases of beer in the Netherlands, both in the on-trade and the off-trade segment, including with regard to private label beer.
2. Occasionally coordinating other commercial conditions offered to individual customers in the on-trade segment in the Netherlands.
3. Occasional concertation on customer allocation, both in the on-trade and the off-trade segment in the Netherlands.

Categories for finning

• Heineken, with beer sales in the Netherlands of EUR [between 450 and 480] million (1998) have been placed in first category.
• Grolsch, with beer sales in the Netherlands of EUR [between 150 and 180] million (1998) and  InBev, with beer sales in the Netherlands of EUR [between 150 and 180] million (1998) are both in second category.
• Thirdly, Bavaria, with beer sales in the Netherlands of EUR [between 100 and 130] million in 1998, is placed in a third category.

Fines

The starting amount of the fines is generally increased by 10 % for each full year of infringement, and further increased by 5 % for any remaining period of 6 months or more but less than a year. All addressees of the Decision are liable for an infringement of 3 years and 8 months. This leads to an increase in the starting amount of the fine by 35 %. AS InBev and Heineken had the largest world-wide turnovers in 1998, the Commission considers it appropriate to multiply the fine for InBev and Heineken by 2,5.

For the infringements referred to above, the following fines were imposed:
Heineken NV and Heineken Nederland BV, jointly and severally: 219,275,000 euros.
Koninklijke Grolsch NV: 31,658,000 euros.
Bavaria NV: 22,850,000 eurs.

Some figures:

world-wide turnover of InBev was 13,308 million euros.
world-wide turnover of Heineken was 11,829 million euros.
world-wide turnover of Grolsch 317 million eurso.
world-wide turnover of Bavaria 401 million euros.