Based in Lyon, the Seb group received a heavy fine for a price agreement with its competitors. (Photo by STEPHANE MAHE / POOL / AFP)
The Lyon group Seb was fined nearly 200 million euros for colluding with its competitors to maintain higher selling prices.
Ten household appliance manufacturers and two distributors were sanctioned on Thursday December 18 by the French Competition Authority and will have to pay a total of 611 million euros in fines for colluding to maintain higher selling prices between February 2007 and December 2014.
The group rejects “any allegation that its practices did not comply with competition rules”
Lyonnais Seb was fined 189.5 million euros and indicated in a press release that he “will file an appeal“before the Paris Court of Appeal rejecting”any allegation that its practices did not comply with competition rules“.
The objective of the sanctioned cartels was to “reduce competition, particularly from online distributors, and maintain high selling prices for consumers“, specifies the Competition Authority.
The means put in place ranged from banning the sale of certain products on the internet to communicating “recommended retail prices“by the manufacturers with”coded language to hide price instructions“, followed by a “surveillance” to ensure that distributors respected them.
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