Record cartel fine
Record cartel fine for Billa parent company Rewe
The Billa parent company Rewe has to pay the highest cartel fine ever imposed in Austria. The Supreme Court (OGH), as the higher cartel court, increased the fine of 1.5 million euros originally imposed by the cartel court to 70 million euros. The case was triggered by a takeover of retail space for a store in Wels.
Kronen Zeitung als bevorzugte Google-Quelle hinzufügen The reason is the prohibited implementation of a merger. Porr (62.4 million euros) and Strabag (45.4 million euros) previously received the highest cartel fines as part of the construction cartel.
Takeover of retail space in Wels
The Rewe case dates back several years: in mid-2018, the then subsidiary Merkur Warenhandels AG (now Billa Plus) took over retail space for a food retail store in the WELAS Park shopping center in Wels, where Weiß Handels GmbH had previously operated a food retail store.
This transaction was not notified to the Federal Competition Authority (BWB) as a merger - a mistake that is now costing Billa's parent company Rewe a lot of money.
Determination based on annual turnover
The record fine is based on the German Rewe Group's annual turnover of over 92 billion euros in 2023. The upper cartel fine limit is up to 10 percent of turnover, i.e. up to 9 billion euros. "Fines under the Cartel Act pursue preventive and repressive purposes, which requires an appropriate amount because otherwise no deterrent effect is achieved," explained the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has "already made it clear on several occasions that fines of a magnitude that have long been common practice at EU level and in numerous member states must also be imposed in Austria in order to effectively combat cartel infringements."
Authority sees the ball in the government's court
The competition authority has long been calling on the government to tighten up antitrust and competition law. In Germany and the UK, the competition authorities have more options at their disposal.
"In Austria, we only have the instrument of merger control, which can stop price increases caused by market concentration," explained the BWB on the occasion of the Rewe decision. "This serves to protect consumers."
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