On 13 November our partner Pablo González de Zárate participated as a speaker in a conference organised by the consultancy Retail Cities in Brussels, which brought together some of the main suppliers of fast-moving consumer goods. The session examined, both from a business and a legal perspective, the increasing complexity surrounding European retailer purchasing alliances.
By way of introduction, Pablo provided his view on the regulatory challenges and enforcement trends affecting retail alliances, which are not only subject to antitrust scrutiny but also to the enforcement of other national legal instruments, such as Unfair Competition Acts or Food Supply Chain Acts. In relation to antitrust, he described the main highlights of the recent antitrust enforcement by the European Commission and national competition authorities.
At an EU level he assessed the unconditional clearance decision of the European Commission in 2023 on the European retail alliances AgeCore and Cooperanic. At a national level, Pablo underlined that enforcement intensity on retail alliances varies greatly across Member States and that France has been traditionally the most active jurisdiction in this regard.
As such, he further presented some of the commitments imposed by the French Competition Authority to clear the alliances formed by Casino, Auchan, Metro and Schiever in 2022 or Carrefour and Tesco in 2020. These commitments entailed, among others, the reduction of the scope of the alliance in terms of product categories or the adoption of measures to enhance the participation of SMIs in the calls for tenders of these alliances. Additionally, Pablo delved into the structural commitments, such as the creation of a separate purchasing entity to prevent anticompetitive information exchanges, imposed by the Belgian Competition Authority in the Carrefour/Provera case.
On the supply side, Pablo exposed the recent strong scrutiny of competition authorities on suppliers, as illustrated by the €337 million fine imposed by the European Commission in 2024 on Mondelez for restricting cross-border sales within the EU, the ongoing Phase II review by the European Commission of the Mars/Kellanova merger, the dawn raids carried out by the European Commission last March in the non-alcoholic drinks sector in several Member States, or the ongoing probes of the European Commission and the Belgian Competition Authority into Red Bull and AB InBev, respectively.
Looking ahead, he believes that enforcement is expected to evolve in line with the Draghi Report and the priorities of the new Commissioner, Teresa Ribera, with continued vigilance against practices that fragment the EU Single Market and greater emphasis on innovation and sustainability. In this regard, Pablo pointed out that the European Commission recently issued its first opinion declaring the compatibility with competition rules of a sustainability agreement.