Mariage Frères teas sanctioned to the tune of 4 million euros | EUROtoday

The Competition Authority introduced on Monday December 11 that it had imposed a monetary penalty of 4 million euros on the Mariage Frères group for cartel practices within the luxurious tea sector. The Mariage Frères group, one of many principal producers of high-end teas in France, has “impeded, for nearly fifteen years, the commercial freedom of its distributors by prohibiting them, on the one hand, from selling its brand’s products online, and, on the other hand, from reselling its products to other resellers »underlines the Authority in a press release.

“These practices, which limited intra-brand competition and partitioned markets, constitute a cartel”, estimates the competitors watchdog. This double ban has appeared since July 2008 within the common circumstances of sale (CGV) relevant to the Mariage Frères distribution community.

Distributors may point out on their web site that they had been promoting Mariage Frères group merchandise of their retailer, however they might neither promote them on the Internet nor use the model’s brand. “Many distributors, often small, or even very small, businesses, suffered from this ban, which hampered the development of their business”notes the Competition Authority.

“At the same time, between 2013 and 2021, (…) the share of sales made online by the Mariage Frères group (mainly via its site or via Amazon) has more than tripled”it’s added. “By combining this practice with the ban on reselling to other distributors, Mariage Frères has, moreover, deprived end consumers of the possibility of benefiting from better prices resulting from effective competition between all distributors”considers the Authority.

In his determination, the competitors watchdog takes into consideration the “particularly long period of fourteen years and six months” throughout which these practices have “persisted”till the notification of grievances to the Mariage Frères group on January 24, 2023.

The sanction of 4 million euros was imposed collectively and severally on the corporate Mariage Frères International SAS, which manages the group’s wholesale exercise, and on its mother or father firm, Mariage Frères SAS. The determination is topic to attraction.