Abstract
In January 2021, the French Competition Authority (Autorité de la concurrence) accepted commitments from the French branch of the LEGO building blocks manufacturer aimed at facilitating access to wholesale discounts for distributors reselling LEGO products exclusively via the internet. The French Competition Authority expressed concerns that the discount system introduced by LEGO in 2014 led to less favourable treatment of distributors specialising in online sales.
This was because many of the criteria for granting the discount could only be met by distributors operating in at least one brick-and-mortar store. Distributors selling exclusively online could therefore be at a competitive disadvantage compared to others.
In order to eliminate these concerns of the French Competition Authority, LEGO eventually agreed to modify the criteria for granting the discount in order to facilitate access to the full amount of the discount for all distributors. An investigation by the German Competition Authority (Bundeskartellamt) in 2016 also resulted in a commitment to modify the LEGO rebate system.
Both decisions raise a number of questions, not only in terms of their adequacy, but also in the context of the extent to which they are in line with the current EU position on price differentiation between distributors, or dual pricing. Is Europe moving towards a prohibition of price differentiation between different categories of distributors beyond the abuse of dominance?