Nearly 50% of competition law infringements in the agricultural sector concerned pricing agreements, according to a report by the European Commission published on Friday 26 October, on the application of the EU competition rules to this sector between 2012 and 2017.
Infringements most frequently concerned agreements between rival processors to set wholesale prices (sugar, flour) or between processors and retailers to set retail sales prices (dairy products, meat, sunflower oil).
The report shows that between 1 January 2012 and mid-2017, the European competition authorities carried out around 126 investigations in the agricultural sector, with 41 investigations still underway, or a total of 167 investigations. The majority of investigations were conducted by the authorities of Austria (24), Denmark (22) and Greece (21) and by the Commission (22). The categories of products concerned by these investigations were: milk and dairy products (34%), meat (19%) fruit and vegetables (12%) and cereals (10%). The most-targeted entities were processors (36%) and retailers (15%). Plaintiffs were mainly agricultural producers (23%). The competition authorities identified practices damaging farmers in Spain (purchasers who paid a lower price to farmers fined) and France (purchasers of live pigs fined). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)