EU and Interbrew Settle Over Practices Towards Belgian Beer Wholesale

Originally published June 2004

On 30 April 2004 the European Commission announced that it had closed its investigation into Interbrew's alleged anti-competitive practices in the Belgian wholesale beer market. The Commission's probe, which stretches back to 1999, concluded after Interbrew undertook to amend its existing practices. The Commission found that Interbrew's practices as amended will not be anti-competitive as they "cannot be considered as an abuse of an alleged dominant position in the Belgian beer market".

Interbrew has promised to implement the following alterations to its wholesale practices by 1 January 2005:

• Interbrew offers rebates to wholesalers based on the volume of each beer purchased by the wholesaler. Interbrew has undertaken to the Commission to make this system entirely transparent for each and all of its wholesalers. So far, wholesalers only knew the discount rate corresponding to the volume range in which their own purchases for the various types