(Bloomberg) — Coca-Cola Co.’s business in Europe was one of the unidentified targets of European Union antitrust raids earlier this month, according to people familiar with the probe.
Without naming the firms, the European Commission announced on March 10 it was carrying out inspections at the premises of companies active in the non-alcoholic drinks sector in several member states. But as usual in such cases it left out the names of the firms.
The EU’s antitrust arm said drinks firms may have violated competition law by carving up parts of the EU market. In parallel, an unidentified personal care company was also quizzed by regulators. The people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, didn’t specify whether it was Coca-Cola’s main business or its bottling partners that are under inspection.
Coca-Cola didn’t respond to a request for comment. The European Commission declined to comment. Coke bottlers include Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Plc and Coca-Cola HBC. Neither responded to Bloomberg’s request for comment.
Penalties for breaches of the bloc’s competition rules can reach as high as 10% of global annual revenue. But the fact raids have been carried out does not presume any suggestion of guilt and there is no legal deadline for the conclusion of the commission’s investigation. Regulators often drop probes if their initial concerns can’t be backed up.
That also happened with Coca-Cola — maker of global drinks brands also including Sprite, Fanta and Monster. The Brussels-based commission in 2023 decided to close a preliminary investigation into the company and its bottling units over fears the firms abused their dominance by granting a series of conditional rebates to retailers, with the goal of hindering competition.
Before then, the company was under scrutiny from the EU over — among other things — exclusivity and rebate agreements with customers. That case was eventually closed, with Coca-Cola agreeing to a series of commitments that appeased the EU’s concerns.
The commission has historically taken a tough stance on firms found to be carving up parts of the supposedly single EU market to make higher profits by charging different prices and curbing competition in different regions.
In May 2024, Mondelez International Inc. was fined €337.5 million ($364 million) after it was found to have illegally thwarted cross-border sales of its chocolate, cookies and coffee.
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