HIt has been five years since Coca-Cola and Estrella Galicia faced a large financial penalty for unfair practices that violated the law. It all started with a complaint from a Galician distributor, Dislugo, who expressed his displeasure because both companies were carrying out practices contrary to the law. He reported in 2019 and given the passivity of the case, he did so again in 2022.
The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has recognized that effectively “there were indications of practices contrary to the Competition Law”, but having expired, Coca-Cola and Estrella Galicia will avoid a large financial penalty. All this after having been reported five years ago.
Regulated prices for all distributors in Spain
The owner of the complaining company, Dislugo, has given an interview to Merca2 to talk about the case and explain the justification he has received from the CNMC: “Market pricing is a very common practice in the beer sector and soft drinks for many years, with threats if the prices they told us were not met.
The owner of Dislugo explains that Coca-Cola and Estrella Galicia have regulated prices for all distributors that work with their products. If all distributors sell the product at the same price in Spain, their profit margin is limited. A practice that, as the CNMC has indicated, is “contrary to the law”, but which will not receive any type of sanction.
From Dislugo they have tried to raise this case to the Ministry of Economy, with a letter addressed to Nadia Calviño, although without success. “As official distributors, we feel ashamed at not being able to compete on prices with other sellers. We have had to adapt to their impositions. They told us in which areas and on which streets we could distribute,” are some of the practices that the Galician company denounces.
