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10 May, 2016

Big Alcohol At It Again: Illegal Price Fixing Exposed – IOGT International

Germans are among the top three beer consumers in the world. Beer is big business in the country of the beer purity law. And so it is no surprise that Big Alcohol – the producers and retailers of alcohol (among others) – is highly active in Germany. By now it is not surprising either that some of the activities of the alcohol industry are actually illegal.

Big Alcohol does it again, according to findings of German authorities, exposing illegal price fixing. Antitrust officials imposed fines of more than €90 million ($103 million) on some of Germany’s biggest retailers for illegally fixing beer prices in collaboration with the world’s largest beer brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev). The officials said supermarket chains including REWE, Metro (MTTRY), NETTO and EDEKA colluded with the German subsidiary of ABInBev to increase prices several times for popular beers such as Beck’s, Franziskaner and Hasseröder.

Read the rest: Big Alcohol At It Again: Illegal Price Fixing Exposed – IOGT International