The European Union fined Mondelez, the US confectioner behind major brands such as Oreosto restrict product sales within the 27-country bloc.
Mondelez, formerly Kraft, is one of the world's largest producers of chocolate, cookies and coffee, with revenue of $36 billion last year.
The EU fined Mondelez “because they have been restricting cross-border trade in chocolate, biscuits and coffee products within the European Union,” EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.
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“This hurt consumers, who ended up paying more for chocolate, biscuits and coffee,” he told reporters in Brussels.
“This case is about the price of groceries. It is a key concern for European citizens and even more evident in times of very high inflation, where many are in a cost of living crisis,” he added.
The free movement of goods is one of the key pillars of the EU's single market.
Mondelez brands also include Philadelphia cream cheese and Ritz crackers, as well as the Cadbury and Cote d'Or chocolate brands.
The commission, the EU's powerful antitrust regulator, said Mondelez “abused its dominant position” by breaking the bloc's rules.
It said the confectioner engaged in “anti-competitive agreements or concerted practices” between 2012 and 2019, including limiting the ability of wholesale customers to resell products and ordering them to charge higher prices for exports compared to national sales.
The EU investigation dates back to January 2021, but suspicions had led the bloc's investigators to raid Mondelez offices across Europe in November 2019.
According to the commission, between 2015 and 2019, Mondelez also refused to supply a trader in Germany to avoid reselling chocolate in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Romania, “where prices were higher”.
It also halted the supply of certain chocolate products to the Netherlands “to prevent them from being imported into Belgium, where Mondelez was selling these products at higher prices.”
Mondelez, however, insisted the fine related to “historical and isolated incidents, most of which ceased or were remedied well in advance of the commission's investigation.”
“Many of these incidents were related to commercial dealings with brokers, which typically take place through sporadic and often one-off sales, and a limited number of small-scale distributors developing new business in EU markets where Mondelez is not present or it does.” market the respective product,” he added in a statement.
The giant had reserved 300 million euros for the fine last year.
“No further measures will be necessary to fund the fine,” he said.
