Brussels, 19/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission announced that it would be opening a procedure concerning the German system for prices imposed on books due to its effects on cross-border sales through the Internet. As a reminder, last year the Commission carried out surprise inspections with several German publishers, bookstores and wholesalers suspecting them of a tacit agreement aiming to boycott bookstores selling their products on the Internet as prices beating competition and that do not respect, according to them, the "Sammelrevers" system (system for the fixing of book prices in Germany) in its modified version. The Commission has just concluded that the way in which this system had been applied by German publishers and bookstores is not in accordance with the agreement concluded with the Commission in the spring of 2000 over the future application of this system and that there effectively exists an illegal agreement between the actors concerned. (See EUROPE of 3 August 2000, p.3 and 23 June, p.9).