According to investigations by the EU Commission, the chocolate giant Mondelez has distorted competition for years and made its products artificially more expensive. That’s why the authority imposed a fine of 337.5 million euros on Thursday, as the competition authorities announced. Among other things, Mondelez wanted to prevent cross-border trade between countries with different prices. “These illegal practices allowed Mondelez to continue to charge higher prices for its own products, ultimately to the detriment of EU consumers,” the European Commission said.
Mondelez produces a number of well-known products including Milka chocolate, Toblerone, Daim, Oreo, Mikado, Philadelphia and Tuc. In January 2021, the EU Commission opened official proceedings. The authority has now announced that Mondelez was involved in 22 anti-competitive agreements or concerted practices. An agreement required Mondelez customers to charge higher prices for exports than for domestic sales. “These agreements and concerted practices took place between 2012 and 2019 and affected all EU markets,” the Commission said.
In addition, Mondelez refused to supply a broker in Germany. The US company wanted to prevent the resale of chocolate bar products in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Romania because the prices in Germany were cheaper.
The penalty was actually supposed to be even higher. Because Mondelez cooperated with the EU Commission and expressly acknowledged its responsibility, the company was granted a 15 percent reduction in the fine, according to the competition authorities. Mondelez said in a statement that these were isolated cases that occurred a long time ago and mostly involved deals with intermediaries. “This only accounts for a very small part of Mondelez International’s European business,” the company said. The company attaches great importance to complying with regulations and has tightened its internal processes accordingly. Reserves were set aside in 2023 for the expected penalty. “No further measures to finance the fine will be necessary,” the company said.