The Bundeskartellamt has imposed a fine totalling approximately 7 million euros on Bose GmbH due to resale price maintenance as a result of its investigation within the context of a request for official assistance by the Austrian competition authority.
Bose manufactures and distributes high-end consumer electronics and its activities in this area mainly focus on the distribution of audio products, especially speakers and headphones. The Bundeskartellamt determined that in addition to conducting the usual negotiations on purchasing prices, Bose also agreed on concerted measures for setting sales prices with the authorised dealers. These measures generally pertained to an increase in sales prices, which were also specifically set in some cases. In this way, Bose wanted to prevent that the sales prices offered by the authorised dealers deviated. For that, Bose monitored the prices of authorised dealers and intervened on several occasions in which the dealers had deviated from the recommended resale price and the dealers stopped the conduct objected to in a number of cases.
As a result, Bundeskartellamt decided to impose fine against Bose for resale price maintenance.
(Bundeskartellamt decision – 02.12.2021)
NAZALI TAX & LEGAL