Autorité de la concurrence imposes €4 million penalty on France’s leading producer of premium Tea

(Autorité de la concurrence/ALC) has imposed a fine of €4 million on Mariage Frères group (MFG) – one of France’s leading producers of premium teas for hindering commercial freedom of its distributors. The ALC found out that, for almost 15 years, MFG has been forbidding its distributors, both from selling MFG’s products online & from reselling MFG’s products to other retailers. The ALC opined that MFG’s practices limited intra-brand competition and partitioned markets, and constitutes a cartel.