GERMANY’S CARTEL office raided some of the country’s largest retailers yesterday on suspicion of price-fixing.
Some 112 cartel investigators and police officers raided offices of retail group Metro and supermarket chains Edeka and Rewe. Also raided was the Schwarz Group, which operates Lidl and Kaufland supermarkets, the drugstore chain Rossmann and Fressnapf pet stores. Edeka and Metro confirmed they had visits from cartel officials. Metro’s supermarket chain Real said it was not part of the investigation, suggesting the investigation involves Metro’s cash-and-carry business.
The federal cartel office confirmed the raid yesterday. It declined to name individual companies, but said it involved 14 retailers owned by 11 companies.
The probe is reportedly concentrated on suspicions that brand name manufacturers of confectionery, pet food and coffee fixed minimum sales prices with retailers to secure margins. German laws forbids such deals and raids by cartel officers are common.
Last spring they raided offices of Germany’s big energy companies on suspicion that they kept wholesale energy prices artificially high. Before Christmas, three of German’s largest coffee companies – Melitta, Dallmayr and Tchibo – were raided and eventually fined € 160 million for fixing prices. If yesterday’s raids produce incriminating evidence that competing retailers and manufacturers colluded to fix prices, it could result in fines of up to 10 per cent of a company’s turnover.
The raid came a day after it emerged that the German subsidiary of Kraft Foods, manufacturer of the Jacob’s brand coffee, was a source of information in the coffee probe. The company, owned by US tobacco company Philip Morris, co-operated with the German cartel office in the investigation.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)