The background to this are violations of the prohibition of abuse and cartels recognized by the competitors authorities, because the BWB introduced on Tuesday. From the BWB’s viewpoint, Brau Union abused its dominant market place to limit the market entry of competing beer producers and to pressure present beverage retailers out of the market.
Complaints and home searches
The applying to the Cartel Courtroom to impose a tremendous was preceded by intensive investigations that confirmed the suspicion of “a collection of impermissible habits,” in line with the BWB. From October 2021, an growing variety of nameless complaints regarding Brau Union’s habits have been obtained, and in April 2022 there was a search of the headquarters in Linz. The Cartel Courtroom can impose fines of as much as 10 % of the group’s turnover for the earlier yr. Brau Union’s guardian firm Heineken can be accountable for the tremendous, however is expressly not affected by the investigations and has not dedicated any violations, in line with the BWB. The benchmark for figuring out the tremendous is Heineken’s whole group turnover, which was most lately over 36 billion euros.
Particularly, Brau Union is claimed to have exploited its dominant market place and threatened beverage consumers that it might not promote them beer if they didn’t additionally buy different drinks from Brau Union. As well as, Brau Union is claimed to have obliged consumers to not inventory drinks from different rivals or to cowl the vast majority of the vary by means of Brau Union. Market and buyer divisions are additionally mentioned to have occurred, though a few of this has already been stopped. The BWB additionally accuses the group of exchanging competition-sensitive knowledge with a purpose to monitor the market and the market entry of competing firms, for instance.
In response to an OÖN question, Brau Union mentioned: “It’s an ongoing process on which we is not going to remark additional. We’re cooperating with the authorities.” A spokeswoman identified {that a} doable tremendous wouldn’t solely have an effect on Brau Union in Austria, but additionally the guardian firm Heineken in Amsterdam.
Previously, there had been repeated criticism of Brau Union’s market energy, particularly from competing impartial Austrian breweries comparable to Stiegl and Ottakringer. As a result of value battle in the course of the corona pandemic, Brau Union’s market share has elevated from round 50 %. The Austrian market chief brings collectively the beer manufacturers Gösser, Zipfer, Kaiser, Puntigamer, Schwechater, Wieselburger, Schladminger and Edelweiss below its roof.
Brau Union was shaped in 1998 by means of the merger of Österreichische Brau AG and Steirerbrau. Since 2003, the corporate, with 2,700 staff, 15 beer manufacturers and 9 breweries, has belonged to Heineken, the second largest beer group on this planet. Based on the “WirtschaftsCompass”, Brau Union achieved gross sales of 850.6 million euros in 2022.
This text was up to date at 12:54 p.m.
