A Greek brewery has filed a €100 million lawsuit against Heineken’s Greek subsidiary, Athenian Brewery, after it was fined £25m for abuse of the market over a 15-year period, squeezing out competitors through exclusivity agreements.
The filing follows a 12-year investigation by the Hellenic Competition Commission (HCC) into the actions of Athenian Brewery (AB) – a subsidiary of Heineken – which eventually found the company in breach of Greek and EU competition law.
In a statement released on 1 December, the HCC said Heineken’s Athenian Brewery had “abused its dominant position” infringing on the Competition Act and 102 EU Treaty by implementing a “single and targeted policy that sought to exclude its competitors from the on-trade consumption market (e.g. HORECA chains and other retail outlets) and to limit their growth possibilities, over a period of fifteen years”.
It said the company had achieved this by using exclusivity agreements to force publicans to stock Heineken brands, and by offering wholesalers “significant economic motives” to promote exclusivity and refrain from introducing competing products.
Heineken, whose brands include Amstel, Fosters and Birra Moretti, has already been handed a €31.5 million (£25m) fine by the HCC, which it has said it will appeal.
In a statement, Athenian Brewery branded the ruling “unfair” and said it “categorically denies the commission’s claims”.
Now the Macedonian Thrace Brewery (MTB) has lodged a separate lawsuit, in light of the HCC ruling, seeking damages in excess of €100 million before the Court of Amsterdam.
“Greek authorities revealed the full extent and intensity of the illegal anti-competitive abuse of Heineken through its Greek operating company,” said Demetri Politopoulos, MTB’s founder and CEO.
“For decades Heineken has been acting like a giant bully who’ll stop at nothing to get its way. It has been illegally distorting the Greek beer market while protecting the supremacy it wields, by coercing and intimidating distributors, retailers and wholesalers, and ultimately ripping off consumers.
“Heineken could have stopped this illegal activity to stifle fair competition in Greece, but chose to turn a blind eye, while gladly plundering profits from decades of blatant abuses.”
Founded by brothers Michael and Demetri Politopoulos in Komotini, Greece, MTB now has a 6% share of the Greek beer market through its premium beer Vergina.
Mr Politopoulos added: “We need Greece to benefit from a fair and competitive environment that encourages investment, new market entrants, healthy competition and economic growth. Together this will help Greece on the path to economic recovery.”
Heineken has called the ruling by the HCC “unfair” and has said it will be appealing the fine, but has not commented further. Should MCB’s claim be successful other Greek breweries will follow in making similar claims.
source: theDrinksBusiness
Bloodie stop blaming a cooperate – start blaming your lawmakers, thats the politicians, for even making that possible
Corporate’s control Governments and not just here in Greece !
Are you trying to tell us that these things do not happen in France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, UK etc? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
I don’t know why people drink Heineken “beer”. This is what I imagine horse pee would taste like. Just one Heineken is already enough to give me a headache. Chemical beer.
Anyway, big companies monopolyzing the market, forming cartels and bullying everybody else? Happens everywhere. Even the granddaddy of liberalism (in the traditional meaning of the word, not the highjacked version used in America, implying the left) and the free market Adam Smith already warned for this.
Any monopoly whether that is by the State or by companies is bad for societies and economies.
Peple drink it when there is no other affordable beer being offered by the bar — a frequent situation in the past. It was a corrupt monopoly — like much of the Greek economy in the private sector.
I don’t know the price of Heineken in Greece cause I never order it there in the first place. I do know that anywhere else it is overpriced (and overrated) in bars. These big beer and beverage companies fix prices among themselves and offer strangulation contracts to bars and retailers. They offer these establishments some extras such as parasols etc. (with their commercials on it) but they make sure that theirs are the only beers served. But people also drink certain brands because they think it is cool. It is all about branding, marketing and the perceived ‘coolness’ and status people think they get when they drink it. That goes for all consumer goods basically. The price of the good becomes the value that people identify with. Some Marxists -as you probably would know- wrote at length about this. They offer you choice but in the end it are the same brands everywhere and local brands disappear.
But there is hope regarding beer. At least in the US home brews are becoming more popular. We had that trend in Europe in the 80s but then it became popular to drink wines in the 90s.
Really, buy local and support your local producers.
I don’t know what you are talking about. Until recently, local producers in Greece had been squeezed out of the market by the corruption of big business. Even now, although I am not speaking specifically about Greek producers, one does not know which company is owned by which conglomerate which is itself owned by another etc etc. Only small producers are likely to be reliably known — and these are systematically squeezed as much as possible. The squeezing is not only from big business: it is also done by governments and banks.
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Moreover, everything the Troika and Greek governments have done has been to try to damage SMEs and benefit large companies. Tsipras has actually been the worst of the lot.
Well, that is what I keep saying over and over: big monopolies whether they are State or big business (even worse if they are in bed with each other under whatever ideology) are bad for economies and societies. SME are the driver of economic growth and form the fabric of societies! Both big businesses as well as big State or governments wants to destroy SME because it makes people independent and of cour we are not allowed to have that.
Tsipras betrayed the Oxi vote because if he had honoured it it would mean he would not be able to govern long or impose his agenda onto the Greek society.
Micro-breweriess in the US? That as a hype started some 15 years ago, now it comes to Europe since 5 years, also in Greece.
Anyway, if you’re thirsty after riding close to any Beer goes and sharing in small glasses only one bottle or two works also.
For people who drink alone may sound strange
Micro breweries were very popular in Western Europe during the 80s. Then it faded away when beer got out of favour over wine and Rose in the 90s. After that the Breezer and other heavy alcohol sweet drinks became popular, along with the various hard drugs.
The Micro breweries concept then made it to America. Would be good if it would come back to Europe.
Micro breweries are now popular in the UK, Germany and even to some extent in Greece. But this is very recent for Greece — and no doub t has eaten into the massive profits of the Heineken mafia.