Recently, the Czech media reported that the Office for the Protection of Competition had fined a leading manufacturer of kitchen utensils tens of millions of Czech crowns for restricting competition. The manufacturer committed this offence by setting minimum prices for its customers at which they could resell its products to their customers.
However, this practice constitutes a violation of both Czech and EU competition rules. A factually similar case was also dealt with by the CJEU in a recent judgment, which commented more generally on the issue of minimum resale prices set by a supplier to its distributors.
As the issue of pricing in the establishment or maintenance of a distribution network is one of the fundamental issues, this article focuses on the conclusions of the CJEU, which we present in a broader context.